Dr. John P. Williamson, who was born in 1835, in one of the mission cabins on the shores of Lac-qui-Parle, who has spent his whole life among the Sioux Indians, and who with a singleness of purpose, worthy of the apostle Paul, has devoted his whole life to their temporal and spiritual uplift, thus vividly sketches missionary life among the Sioux in his boyhood days: "My first serious impression of life was that I was living under a great weight of something, and as I began to discern more clearly, I found this weight to be the all-surrounding overwhelming presence of heathenism, and all the instincts of my birth and culture of a Christian home set me at antagonism to it at every point. "This feeling of disgust was often accompanied with fear. At times, violence stalked abroad unchallenged and dark lowering faces skulked about. Even when we felt no personal danger this incubus of savage life all around weighed on our hearts. Thus it was day and night. Even those hours of twilight, which brood with sweet influences over so many lives, bore to us, on the evening air, the weird cadences of the heathen dance or the chill thrill of the war-whoop. Ours was a serious life. The earnestness of our parents in the pursuit of their work could not fail to impress in some degree the children. The main purpose of Christianizing that people was felt in everything. It was like garrison life in time of war. But this seriousness was not ascetical or moroseful. Far from it. Those missionary heroes were full of gladness. With all the disadvantages of such a childhood was the rich privilege of understanding the meaning of cheerful earnestness in Christian life." [Illustration: REV. STEPHEN R. RIGGS, D.D., LL.D., Forty-five Years a Missionary to the Dakotas.] Chapter III. Thus for more than a quarter of a century, the glorious work of conquering the Sioux nation for Christ went on. It was pushed vigorously at every mission station from Lac-qui-Parle to Red Wing and from Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in these years. And such a work!