Part 2

The unity of the human race was confirmed in the way in which Mark picked at his trousers, and in the way in which he did not know what to do with his hands and his feet during his eloquent oration. The Indians laughed at his embarrassment “just like white folks.” The wives of the teachers and the Christian women from the out-stations had come to this great entertainment. They met at an Indian home (Spotted Bear’s) and decided to call a meeting, inviting Miss Collins to address them, as she had just returned to her old home and people after a long absence. About fifty women, of whom about thirty were Christians and twenty were in varied stages of darkness, made the congregation. Miss Collins opened the meeting with a hymn of rejoicing, which was sung with a will by all the people. Next she read the verses in Matt. 5.—“Ye are a city set on a hill. Do men light a candle,”—etc. “Let your light shine.” Speaking first to Christians who have been taught, she reminded them that the heathen were looking to them for help, and that if they did not honor God and the Church, then, instead of giving light to their people, they were making the darkness more dense—that even from the far-away districts they knew what the Indians at Oahe and up and down the Cheyenne River were doing—and if they followed Christ closely so would those beginning to see the light follow them. It was as if they were making a road across the trackless plains; if they kept on in a straight way, avoiding all the bad places, finding the good camping places by the way;—those who followed would be safe. Then she reported from her work at Grand River, trying to impress upon the women the necessity of working in their Missionary Society, to earn money to help give the gospel to the people. Luluwin Deprey, a half-breed woman who became a Christian and united with the church among the first converts, reported from their workers on the Cheyenne. She brought fancy articles made of buckskin trimmed in beads and porcupine quills, to be sold for the Missionary Society. In all, they will bring about ten dollars. She spoke in a quiet, modest way, saying that in making all these things they had asked no help whatever to buy material. They gave the material themselves, so that all that they brought was clear gain to the work. She urged the necessity of the church doing more, saying: “We have now but little money on hand and September is not far off, and we must work much. We have been ‘playing mission work’; now let us go to work and raise all the money we can, for if we are Christ’s we must not be idle or selfish. We must do all we can to help our heathen people, for many of our neighbors are in darkness. Many in this room are yet without the knowledge of God. We must _lift up the candle_.” Elizabeth Winyan spoke eloquently of the work done in the white churches by the Christian women for those who were living and dying without the gospel. All people who are without the Bible are alike. None can live without the Bible without starving the soul. It is true we Dakota Christians are “a city set on a hill.” Bad actions are seen even farther than good ones. If you keep your house well, the others will learn from you. If you keep your children well, others learn from you. If you pray, so will others learn to pray. It is now time for the Dakotas to arise and with one action and one voice proclaim themselves children of Christ. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave Himself for us. He was an only son, and you and I know how precious He was to His Father. We must now give ourselves and all that we have to this work as these women (the white women) have done. Our Indian Missionary Society has done but little, but now let us truly lift up our hands and lay hold of this work. We have learned the truth. We must learn to be the leaders and walk before these people so that we may lead them to Christ. Our missionary has brought tears in relating the sufferings of our people. Now let us see what we can do to bring the people into the light. Without the Bible our people will die. With the Bible we shall live and multiply and be a strong people. We are “only women,” but women can give the light to those in darkness, and the command to go into all the world, means for you to help; you, and you, and me;—every one. No one has a right to say: ‘Let others work; I will be good myself but cannot help.’ When we see these white missionaries who leave all and come to us, it is a shame if we who have been brought to Christ should hold back anything from Christ. We can do something whether we have money or not. We have our hands and eyes and brains. We can make something that will sell and get a little, and if only ten cents or five cents, the Lord will bless it and make it do something for His honor and glory. Let us be more diligent—pray more—and then shall our own strength be made greater and our own hearts more steadfast and our own lives more fruitful, and our light will shine so that the way shall no longer be dark but plain and clear to those coming after us. We cannot sit all the day idle if we are servants of God; we must bestir ourselves. Work for God and honor him and save our people, and in this way shall we strengthen our souls. Pray, depend upon God and do as He teaches, and though now you may not understand all He teaches, your mind will open and you will become wise.

“Ptanwin,” or Buffalo woman, the mother of Spotted Bear’s wife, and more than sixty years of age, then spoke. She came down here from Spotted Tail Agency a long time ago, and attended school all winter. She learned to sing many hymns and to read a little in the Bible. Becoming a Christian and uniting with the church, she remained here a year, and then said: “I must go back to my relatives, who are still in darkness, and teach them.” She had held meetings in various places, sometimes going thirty miles to hold a prayer-meeting. All this time her son was asking for a missionary. This poor woman, lame, wholly blind in one eye, and aged, was thus passing the light along. Once in her sickness her daughter heard a sound coming from her room, and on going in she found her mother singing, “Jesus loves me; this I know,” in her own tongue. The daughter said, “Mother, what is the matter?” She replied, “The pain will not let me sleep, and when I pray and sing, it strengthens me and helps me to bear it.” In her address she said: “I found you had not collected much money, so I said: ‘I will help.’ I got a buckskin, tanned it, and brought it down. I give it to you to make little things out of, that the people will buy. When I started to come I expected to have a good time, and strengthen myself with your presence. Now I am here, God has given me even more than this—He has permitted me to see and take by the hand the one who brought me to Christ (Miss Collins), and my heart is full of joy.”

Her daughter, Spotted Bear’s wife, then made a few remarks in behalf of the sick. She said: “We have tried to help the sick, but we have but little money now, and so can do nothing. We want more money. I remember nothing influenced me in my early Christian experience so much as the way the missionaries cared for the sick. All of you know how the care of your body draws your heart toward the one who cares for you. Now, in many cases if we are good to the sick, we may win the souls to Christ. Then let us not be close or stingy. Let us help all we can. Christ came down from heaven. He gave his body to die on the cross, to be pierced and spit upon, and nailed to the cross. All this He did for us. What shall we do now for the people? We cannot die for them; it is not necessary. We cannot give our bodies for them; this is finished; but we can help them. We can give money; we can read the Bible and pray with them. Let us do something; we must be doing something, for these are our brothers, our sisters, our children and our parents who are living in darkness. We can help. We know the blessing of the gospel. We must give this blessing to our people. We must be faithful. Our American Missionary Association is not able to do all that the Indians need, and we must help. As surely as we pray and read the Bible and _give_ to this work, just as surely will we ourselves develop into large and strong Christians. I will now ask your help for this work.”

A hat was passed, and ten dollars collected—ten dollars, lacking one cent.

Then Mrs. Riggs, Secretary of their Missionary Society, reported the amount on hand—twenty-two dollars—and told the women that “the work was far below what it ought to be; the people at the out-stations have done well, but we must continue to give—must do more, and if we will help ourselves, God will help us, and we shall save many.”

So closed this interesting missionary meeting among the red Dakota people. In the afternoon, after a lunch, the parents took their children home for the vacation, but there were no Saratoga trunks to pack or carry.

All of this, let it be remembered, was in the Dakota language—which is now forbidden—the only language which they can use, or in which the gospel can be made known to them.

A. F. BEARD

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THE FOLLOWING INCIDENT, taken from a letter received at this office from Miss Collins, is at least an intimation of how heartlessly cruel is the proposition to deny the Indians the use of their own language in their schools:

“One of our Santee school boys is dying. He is a true child of God. He wishes to see his relatives all saved, and O! the light in his face. It is grand as he reads in his own tongue to the old men and women and the young people the sweet words, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ He has plead with them to turn to Christ to be saved. He says: ‘I am not afraid to die.’”

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CANADIAN INDIANS.

REV. SILAS HUNTINGTON, a missionary of the Montreal Methodist Conference, has been laboring along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. In his report recently made, Mr. Huntington gives an incident illustrative in a striking manner of the power of the gospel over the pagan heart. He says:

“The Hudson Bay Company has an important post established on the line of this road in connection with which I have found a band of Indians, numbering seventy-two souls, who were converted from paganism at Michipicoton over twenty years ago under the labors of the late Rev. Geo. McDougall. They claim to be Methodists, and through all these years, although separated from the body of their tribe, they have kept their faith and maintained their religious worship without the aid of a missionary.

“The testimony of Mr. Black, the Hudson Bay Company’s officer, on their behalf was given in the words: ‘These Indians are a godly people. I often attend their services, and find their prayers and addresses fervent and intelligent, and they have not been corrupted by the vices of the white men.’ Persistent efforts have been made by bigoted ecclesiastics to seduce them from their allegiance to Christ, but hitherto they have resisted all such overtures. I baptised five of their children and promised to do what I could to obtain a teacher for them.”

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BREADTH OF THE A. M. A. WORK.

BY REV. NELSON MILLARD, D.D.

There are certain considerations which entitle this American Missionary Association to the peculiar esteem of our churches. There are in these churches not a few who cherish a paramount, not to say an exclusive, interest in _foreign_ missions. On the other hand, there is another considerable number who cherish a like primary and preponderant concern for _home_ missions. Many are ready to give largely to the work abroad, but little to the domestic field, and _vice versa_. I regard this drawing of a sharp line of distinction and division of interest between the two departments of missionary activity as unfortunate and illogical. Foreign and home missions are in their essential nature one. Our navy, when striking at an enemy in distant seas, is in essential spirit and aim at one with our army operating within our own borders. Nevertheless, the division of feeling, however illogical, exists, and what I desire to say is, that this American Missionary Association offers itself to the earnest interest of _both_ parties, because it combines in itself the elements of both the foreign and the home work. In carrying the gospel to the Indians and the Chinese, it is taking it to _pagans_. So also, in carrying it to many of the Negroes and to the poor whites of the mountain regions of the South, it is taking it to those whose ideas of religion are far more pagan than Christian, and whose gross superstition causes them to need the pure gospel as much as if they lived in India or Japan. So that this Association may be rightly regarded as a foreign missionary agency. And yet, on the other hand, these various populations to which I have referred are dwelling within our own borders, are to a considerable extent a part of our body politic, and are being more and more incorporated into it; so that the work is also home missionary in its character. And we may cordially and confidently commend this Association to our churches, because it combines both grand forms of religious enterprise. To those most interested in carrying the Gospel to pagans, we can say, “We are doing that work,” and to those centering their regard upon the evangelization of our own land, we can say, “We are laboring toward that end also.”

But this Association commends itself to us, again, because it has borne, on account of those for whom it works, a vast amount of obloquy and scorn, but, in spite of it all, has persisted in exhibiting unflinchingly the innermost spirit of the Gospel—namely, that of self-sacrifice for the peculiarly needy, and identification of itself with the cause of the outcast and forlorn. Foreign missions have not had to bear any stigma of contumely or disgrace. Home missions have even felt the favoring breath of popularity. But this Association, in espousing the cause of what many regarded as pariah and outcast classes, had to bear from certain quarters unmeasured obloquy and contempt. But it bore them not only without shrinking, but rejoicing that it was counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake.

Its noble teachers and other workers, in many and constant exhibitions of splendid heroism and self sacrifice, gladly made the cause of the friendless and despised their own. They have rejoiced to illustrate that great principle of the Gospel, that we owe not simply those who have done something for us, but those for whom we can do something. And they have believed, and never failed to assert, that the most infernal of all arguments and the very spawn of hell, is that because a man is already under or inferior, therefore you may still further oppress and keep him down. That is just the reason for helping and lifting him up. All honor to a society that has had, and that has cordially accepted, the opportunity, not afforded to all benevolent enterprises, of illustrating the spirit of Christianity in the midst of obloquy and scorn.

And then, this Association commends itself to our hearty regard by the breadth and enlightenment of its views concerning the work it undertakes. It has intelligently grasped and acted upon the principle that the only effectual antidote for the gross superstition of the classes among which it labors is, in the full sense of the term, _light_—light educational, moral, religious. It has not believed, to its credit be it spoken, that even a little learning is a dangerous thing, but rather that it is better than none. It knows that though intelligence without faith may be perverted to evil, equally so may faith without intelligence. If the former can make an infidel, the latter can make a bigot. If the former may make an Ingersoll, the latter may make a Torquemada, between whom there is little to choose. By furnishing, as the antidote of superstition, at once secular, moral and religious light, this Association gives fundamental and radical treatment to the evil, and by the breadth and enlightenment of its views commends itself to our intelligent denomination.

Need I rehearse the grand motives which should incite us to sustain this noble society in its work? Are we patriots? Then let us take the darkened masses of our land for Protestantism, for if we do not they will be taken for Catholicism. I am not blind to the many elements of good in the Catholic church; but one fact stands out bold and prominent in her long history, viz.: that she is the foe of free institutions. To be such is the instinct of an irresponsible hierarchy. So long as the Negro was without the ballot, the Romish church paid little heed to him; but when she saw in his hand that white symbol of power, she went for him, for she takes the scent of power as quickly as the deerhound takes the tainted gale. Are we patriots? Then let us win the Freedmen to Protestantism and its liberty, if we would not have them won to the Papacy with its religious and political bondage.

Need I mention that love of man which is a higher motive even than love of country, that philanthropy which is a nobler incentive than patriotism? Or need I mention that love and loyalty to Christ, which is a motive finer than love of country and loftier than love of man? Under the mighty and splendid impulsion of all these incentives, let us count it a privilege to give ourselves, with an ever fresh and ever constant enthusiasm, to the aid of this noble Association and its noble work.

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A CENTENARIAN.

Mrs. Betsy Averill, of New Preston, Conn., last May celebrated her centennial birthday. She is still living. As the Constitution was not adopted until September, 1787, she is older by a few months than the Republic. She lives in the house in which Horace Bushnell was born. Dr. Tyler was her pastor. Dr. Lyman Beecher she knew well, and Dr. Jeremiah Day, President of Yale College, was her personal friend. For more than eighty years she has been a faithful follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. She has been conspicuously the friend of missions, and her zeal in this direction is greater now than ever. She has been a contributor to the American Missionary Association ever since its formation in 1846. The Negro, Chinese and Indian have had in her a true friend. An Indian girl whom she helped to educate sent her a picture and congratulations on her centennial anniversary. The Connecticut Indian Association passed special resolutions of kind appreciation, which were presented to her on the same occasion.

Fifty of her descendants and relatives sat down with her at the birthday dinner. This was her centennial message to the company: “I have lived a century. Long have I tested the love of God and the faith in Christ. I want to recommend to you all that loving Saviour who is my closest friend and my precious hope of glory.” She still retains to a remarkable degree health of body and vigor of mind. The editor of THE MISSIONARY “presented the cause” in New Preston, recently; he of course called upon this venerable “Mother in Israel.” To his great regret, she was not at home. She had gone off on a visit to a friend, some miles distant; but he brought away her photograph and a card on which she had, with slightly trembling hand, written her autograph.

Says her pastor, Rev. Frank S. Child: “There is a precious and inspiring lesson written upon the pages of such a rare, long life. May we learn the lesson and weave it into character.” And so say we. The American Missionary Association is proud of having had such a constituent since the beginning of its history, and THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY of having such a subscriber and reader. God bless her.

Moral: If you want to have a happy old age, serve God; become a life member of the American Missionary Association, and a constant reader of THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY. Try it.

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THE SOUTH.

NOTES IN THE SADDLE.

BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J. RYDER.

I have no extended missionary trip to report this month, as the schools of the Association are closed, and the church work is somewhat quiet this season of the year.

A run into Ohio, to assist in the ordination of Rev. J. F. Cross, who goes as a missionary among the Sioux Indians, may, however, legitimately furnish a basis for “Notes in the Saddle.” A good New England friend recently asked, in all seriousness, if there really were a horse belonging to the A. M. A., or whether I hired one, from time to time, as the occasion demanded? What a wild Tam O’Shanter ride it would be from Washington to Texas in four or five days! But such a ride, taken once or twice a year, would only cover a small portion of the field of the Association. Here on the west is the work among the Indians, stretching from Santa Fé, New Mexico, away up to Dakota. The A. M. A. has schools and churches all along the line. This Council in Ohio gave its commission to a new harvester going out into this field.

Mr. Cross is a graduate of Adelbert College, Cleveland, and of Yale Theological Seminary. He has had somewhat peculiar preparation for the missionary work upon which he now enters, through experience gained in home missionary fields. He enters upon this new work with his eyes open, fully appreciating its hardships. He will be located at Park Street Station, among the Blanket Sioux. Three villages, containing some 8,000 Indians, will constitute his parish. His work will include school teaching and almost every form of religious service. His nearest missionary neighbor will be at Rosebud Agency, sixty-five miles away. In 1885 an old building was purchased from the natives, and in 1886 a new building was erected, the Park Street Church, Boston, contributing the funds. This building is not a modern parsonage, with hot and cold water, gas, furnace, and all the luxuries with which many churches delight to furnish their pastor’s home. This parsonage of the prairie is a log building, with shingle roof, containing two rooms; and yet it answers the purpose for which it was built well. A native missionary with Christian passion for his people, has gone into this field already. Brother Cross follows Jacob Good Dog, who was the Boniface in this pioneer missionary work. In a letter written by Francis Frazier, who is the son of Rev. Artemus Ehnamani, the Indian pastor, there is the following pleading petition for his people: “Thus God has blessed this people; and that God will give them understanding to go on to comprehend His laws, and that they may believe and have faith in Him, when you pray will you remember them?” This tender and passionate appeal for the Indians gains additional emphasis by the going out of a new missionary to this field.

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The churches and pastors of Ohio I found were greatly stirred up by the proposed outrages against our missionaries and teachers in Georgia. Cordial words were spoken on every side in endorsement of the A. M. A., and in condemnation of the un-Christian and un-American attempts to violate personal liberty and freedom of conscience under the flimsy pretense of legal right. A tremendous Republican uprising will follow this attempt on the part of Georgia to introduce again the policy of suppression and inhumanity that had its culmination, years ago, in the cruelties of the prison stockade of Andersonville. The thumb screw and rack and chain-gang as instruments for the suppression of freedom of opinion, are things of the past, and no feeble attempt to legalize them can be permanently successful in this land to-day.