and whose hell
was a frozen horror of desolation and darkness, to be avoided only by
diligence in robbery and courage in murder. The descendants of these
human butchers are now among the best exponents of the humanizing
influence of the gospel of Christ. The report of the Superintendent of
the remnants of the once fierce and warlike Six Nations, now peaceable
and prosperous in Canada, shows that the Indian is not inferior to the
Norse ancestors of the Danes and Norwegians of our day in capability of
improvement.

It is scarcely necessary to say, what is universally conceded, that the
wars waged by the Indians against the whites have, in nearly every
instance, been provoked by violations of solemn treaties and systematic
disregard of their rights of person, property, and life. The letter of
Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to the New York Tribune of second month,
1877, calls attention to the emphatic language of Generals Sherman,
Harney, Terry, and Augur, written after a full and searching
investigation of the subject: "That the Indian goes to war is not
astonishing: he is often compelled to do so: wrongs are borne by him in
silence, which never fail to drive civilized men to deeds of violence.
The best possible way to avoid war is to do no injustice."

It is not difficult to understand the feelings of the unfortunate pioneer
settlers on the extreme borders of civilization, upon whom the blind
vengeance of the wronged and hunted Indians falls oftener than upon the
real wrong-doers. They point to terrible and revolting cruelties as
proof that nothing short of the absolute extermination of the race can
prevent their repetition. But a moment's consideration compels us to
admit that atrocious cruelty is not peculiar to the red man. "All wars
are cruel," said General Sherman, and for eighteen centuries Christendom
has been a great battle-field. What Indian raid has been more dreadful
than the sack of Magdeburg, the massacre of Glencoe, the nameless
atrocities of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the murders of St.
Bartholomew's day, the unspeakable agonies of the South of France under
the demoniac rule of revolution! All history, black with crime and red
with blood, is but an awful commentary upon "man's inhumanity to man,"
and it teaches us that there is nothing exceptional in the Indian's
ferocity and vindictiveness, and that the alleged reasons for his
extermination would, at one time or another, have applied with