young
tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the
tribe like the parent trunk.

Brothers! I make you a short talk, and again bid you welcome to our
council hall.

Not often have they been addressed with such intelligence and tact. The
few who have not approached them with sordid rapacity, but from love to
them, as men, and souls to be redeemed, have most frequently been
persons intellectually too narrow, too straightly bound in sects or
opinions, to throw themselves into the character or position of the
Indians, or impart to them anything they can make available. The Christ
shown them by these missionaries, is to them but a new and more powerful
Manito; the signs of the new religion, but the fetiches that have aided
the conquerors.

Here I will copy some remarks made by a discerning observer, on the
methods used by the missionaries, and their natural results.

"Mr. ---- and myself had a very interesting conversation, upon the
subject of the Indians, their character, capabilities, &c. After ten
years' experience among them, he was forced to acknowledge, that the
results of the missionary efforts had produced nothing calculated to
encourage. He thought that there was an intrinsic disability in them, to
rise above, or go beyond the sphere in which they had so long moved. He
said, that even those Indians who had been converted, and who had
adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved in their
real character; they were as selfish, as deceitful, and as indolent, as
those who were still heathens. They had repaid the kindnesses of the
missionaries with the basest ingratitude, killing their cattle and
swine, and robbing them of their harvests, which they wantonly
destroyed. He had abandoned the idea of effecting any general good to
the Indians. He had conscientious scruples, as to promoting an
enterprise so hopeless, as that of missions among the Indians, by
sending accounts to the east, that might induce philanthropic
individuals to contribute to their support. In fact, the whole
experience of his intercourse with them, seemed to have convinced him of
the irremediable degradation of the race. Their fortitude under
suffering, he considered the result of physical and mental
insensibility; their courage, a mere animal excitement, which they found
it necessary to inflame, before daring to meet a foe. They have no
constancy of purpose; and are, in fact, but little superior to the
b