ears a Missionary to the Sioux.]

He was the first Sioux Indian to enter the ministry. In the spring of
1865, he was licensed to preach, by the presbytery of Dakota, at
Mankato, Minnesota, and ordained in the following autumn. When he
entered the ministry, the Sioux Indians were in a very unsettled state,
and his labors were very much scattered; now with the Indian scouts on
some campaign; again with a few families of Indians gathered about some
military post, and anon with a little class of Indians, who were trying
to settle down to civilized life.

In 1870, he became the pastor of Iyakaptapte, (Ascension) a little
church in what subsequently became the Sisseton reservation. Both
physically and in mental and spiritual qualities, he was best adapted
to a settled pastorate. His quiet and unobtrusive character required
long intercourse to be appreciated. However, in the pulpit, his
earnestness and apt presentation of the truth ever commanded the
attention even of strangers. Under his ministry, the church increased
to one hundred and forty members. More than half a dozen of them became
ministers and Ascension was generally the leading church in every good
work among the Dakota Indians. No one among the Christian Sioux was
more widely known and loved than Mr. Renville. In the councils of the
church, though there were seventeen other ministers in the presbytery
before his death, he was ever given the first place both for counsel
and honor. He twice represented his presbytery in the general Assembly,
and he was ever faithful in his attendance at Synod and Presbytery and
active in the discharge of the duties devolving upon him.

Mary Butler, the white wife of his youth, died several years ago. Their
daughter Ella, a fine Christian young lady passed away at twenty years
of age. She was active in organizing Bands of Hope among the children
of the tribe. She sleeps, with her parents on the brow of Iyakaptapte
overlooking the church to which all their lives were devoted.
Josephine, the Indian wife of his old age, survives him and remains in
the white farm house on the prairie in which John Baptiste Renville
spent so many years of his long, happy useful life. He died December
19, 1904, in the seventy-third year of his age.

VIII

AN INDIAN PATRIARCH.

Chief Cloudman or Man-of-the-sky, was one of the strongest characters
among the natives on the headwaters of the Mississippi in the earlier
half of the nineteenth centu