Dean who represents in his own person and office that established church which shut its sacred edifices against him, and drove him and his co-workers into the streets and lanes of the cities and villages of England to "preach the gospel to the poor." In a time when the old Ishmaelitish spirit of hostility between Methodist and Non-Methodist bodies has given way to recognized Christian fellowship, and when fraternal delegates convey cordial greetings to the long-sundered assemblies of the universal church of Christ, we may by generous comparison and fair contrasts learn much of practical value from the working of a system which commands universal attention, and is destined to still greater prominence in the ecclesiastical and religious movements of the age.

The late Dr. McClintock, whose name and fame are in all the churches, once said to the writer of this paper, that he believed the day was nigh at hand when all branches of the evangelical church would be compelled to unite more closely in defense of their common faith against the aggressions of Romanism and Atheism, and that God would gradually strengthen the churches for that conflict by the spirit of Christian union, by mighty revivals of religion, and by the combined pressure of the hostile forces. No man in the Methodist communion has done more than that eminent preacher, scholar, and author, to prepare his own church for that swift coming day. With sister churches, she raises her constant protests against Papal hierarchy, the rationalistic heresies, the secularism and infidelity of the times. Her silver trumpets sound forth the salvation of the gospel on every continent and in many languages. Her conquests have been mostly from the world, and largely from classes of population which other churches failed to reach with equal popularity and power. With all her defects and weaknesses, and after making all abatements which our Calvinistic theology and Presbyterial system and calm judgments of its results and tendencies suggest, we can not but rejoice in every token of her prosperity, and bid her God speed in doing Christ's work for Christ's sake. The typical circuit rider, with his saddle bags, primitive dress, plain manners, and rude preaching, has almost entirely disappeared, except perhaps on the western frontier and in some. portions of the South. Early Methodism, bold, controversial,

shouting, and pioneering, has given way to a more cultivated but not less earnest and aggressive generation of preachers and people. The despised little societies have become a great historical church, " an army with banners." The Arminianism of Wesley and the Calvinism of Westminster and of Dordrecht are working out their legitimate developments side by side in all the world. They are too diverse and contradictory to ad. mit of organic union between their respective churches, yet they approach each other closely enough on the great essential truths of salvation, to dwell together in Christian charity and to cooperate against the " enemies of cross of Christ." And in his name we "will now say " to this sister church, " peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces."

Art. II. THE INDIAN QUESTION.*

BY THOMAS WILLIAMSON, M.D., Saint Peter, Minn.

[We are very glad, in the present perplexity of the public mind in regard to the proper method of dealing with our Indian population, to be able to present to our readers the two following papers, from writers who speak from personal knowledge and experience.-EDITORS.]

THIS Indian question is still unsolved. It is of vital importance to the red-men, and sufficiently concerns the white race, to merit all the ink and paper and thought which have been bestowed on it. Some want to banish it, but, like Banquo's ghost, it will not down, or disappears only to come up again when most unwelcome. Public sentiment just now seems to be settling strongly in one direction. The articles above named, published in our most able and popular magazines, written by

*North American Review, April, 1873.

Indian Citizenship. International Review, May, 1874. By Francis A. Walker, late U. S. Com. I. A.

The Indian Question. By Rev. G. Ainslie. Presbyterian Quarterly, July, 1875. How to Treat the Indians. By L. Edwin Dudley. Scribner's Monthly, Aug. 1874

men of different occupations, all of them ardent friends of the Indians, who have thought much on the subject, and one of whom, Prof. Walker, is justly ranked among our deepest thinkers, all advocate substantially the same policy: that of putting them on a reservation, and confining them to it, isolated as much as possible from the white population, until, while living as paupers or slaves, they can be fitted for liberty and citizenship.

A large majority of the officers of our government, including the members of Congress, who manifest any interest in the welfare of the aborigines of our country, seem to take substantially the same view of the case, and look upon confining them on reservations, and feeding them, as the best thing which can be done for them. Many of them show plainly that they have little or no confidence in this. Even the writers named seem to have very little hope that what they so earnestly plead for will ever be done, and regard this isolation of the Indians as desirable rather than practicable. Prof. Walker shows clearly, that what he earnestly desires is only an attempt to do with the whole aboriginal population of our country, what was begun with a part of them, under far more favorable circumstances, more than half a century ago. I think it can be proved that the civilization of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and other civilized Indians on their reservation, is not owing to the reservation system, but to their instruction in Christianity; and that now it is not possible in our country to isolate the red men, and I hope to show that if it could be done, it would be no remedy for the evils of which they complain.

The first business of a physician when called to a patient, is to ascertain the cause, nature, and seat of the disease he has to contend with. When these are well known, scarcely any case is hopeless; when unknown, he gropes in darkness, and his medicines are of little or no value-about as likely to do harm as good. It is of the utmost importance in difficult, dangerous cases, that the physician in person carefully examine the patient. No amount of learning and reports from others can supply the place of this. Here the writers I have referred to have failed. They have read and heard much about Indians. They have seen some, and conversed with thein through interpreters. Some of them may have talked with

some Indians a little without an interpreter, but they have relied chiefly on the reports of others, and have not, by conversing with heathen Indians in their own tongue, become acquainted with their religion and modes of thinking and action; hence, they have never learned why red men generally refuse to labor, and are poor, thriftless, and many of them vicious; or, in other words, what it is which impedes their civilization.

There are two principal impediments to the civilization of the heathen aborigines of our country-one moral, the other political; one in themselves, the other in their surroundings. The former has seldom been mentioned, or even alluded to, in what has been written concerning them; and as Prof. Walker never resided among them, it is not strange that it escaped his notice, as it did also that of the other writers named.

The other has been more or less spoken of in the public documents published with nearly every annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for a quarter of a century; hence it seems strange indeed, that he should be ignorant of it. In his strong expressions as to the ease of governing a tribe left to its own proper forces, he seems to deny its existence, and it seems impossible that a man who has never lived among Indians should understand them.

1. The first impediment to civilization of the aborigines of our country is their religion.

It was the firm belief of those in the northern part of our country that red men were made to hunt and fight; and that for them to labor, as civilized men do, is not only degrading, but wicked and dangerous. I have been told very many times by heathen Sioux, when endeavoring to persuade them to cultivate corn and potatoes to save themselves and families from starvation, that it is well for white men and black men so to labor; but that if they should do so, they would die— the gods would destroy them.

I know that the aversion of Indians to perform agricultural or mechanical labor has generally been attributed to laziness; but all persons who have lived among them should know better; for no men labor harder than the Sioux were accustomed to do in chasing deer and buffalo, and carrying the meat into camp; or the Algonquin, in paddling and carrying their ca

noes and their baggage, when taking fish or furs. Yet these same men could not, while heathen, be hired to chop wood, or hoe corn-much lighter work. There were some exceptions. For though red men are more generally religious than white men, there are infidels among them as among ourselves; and such might be hired to use a hoe, or an axe, when and where there was no probability of being seen by any of their own people. Nevertheless, most of them sincerely believed that for them such labor was both wicked and dangerous. I will mention a single case in illustration. The late Major J. R. Brown, who, as U.S. Agent, first succeeded in inducing heathen Sioux men to engage in cultivating the soil, and began this by hiring White Dog, a well-known brave, and brother-in-law to the celebrated chief Wabashaw, still living, to have his hair trimmed, and dress as a white man, himself acting as barber, and subsequently, as U. S. Marshal, adjusted the halter on his neck when White Dog was hung at Mankato, Minn., for participating in the massacres of 1862, often said that this Indian evinced far more terror when his hair was being cut, than when the halter was being adjusted on his neck. I was present at the execution of him, and the thirty-seven others executed at the same time, and conversed with him, after he knew that his last day had come and the time of his death was very near, and I never doubted the truth of Major Brown's report; and I think it was not doubted by any who were present at the time. White Dog constantly, and I, after considering all the evidence brought against him, suppose truly, affirmed his innocence of the crime with which he was charged, and feeling innocent, death was much less terrible to him than had been the idea of offending his gods by becoming an agriculturalist.

To give further proofs in detail of the existence and potency of this impediment would unduly extend this article. I could easily give the names of more than fifty men now living who, when heathen, could not be hired to work, and since becoming Christians, work as industriously as the average of civilized men. This impediment is real, not imaginary, and no scheme for civilizing heathen Indians which overlooks it, or fails to make provision for the removal of it, can succeed. This can be properly done by preaching the gospel to them, and it cannot be done effectually in any other way; at least,