Their proximity to the whites, however, and the facilities afforded them for obtaining intoxicating liquors, during the short time that they remain at their villages, has latterly had a demoralizing and degenerating effect upon them, and the counteracting influence of the gospel seems as yet to have made no visible impression upon any of them. Still the missionaries, who are laboring here, are sowing the seed in tears, trusting to the promise of our Lord: “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” And surely, when we look back at the labors of our first missionaries among the heathen, and consider how the Lord eventually crowned their toils, who will doubt His ability and willingness to do the same thing at the present day, when even the heathen tribes are begging to have missionaries among them—an instance of which we witnessed at a council, which Mr. McKinney held with a delegation of the principal chiefs of the Puncaws, a tribe of wild Indians living about 150 miles up the Missouri, who had come to Council Bluffs expressly for the purpose of soliciting missionaries. The following is a speech which the principal speaker made to Mr. McKinney: “My Father,—I wished to see you a long time already. I am now here. My heart is glad that I can now at length behold your face. My heart is now as clear as this pleasant and bright day. I see you do a great deal for these children here, and I wish you would do something for my people. I am a fool,—I have no sense,-but you have knowledge. You have the words of the Great Spirit, and I wish you therefore to come to us, and teach us.”