Mary and I: Forty Years with the SiouxRiggs, Stephen Return
History
Mary and I: Forty Years with the Sioux
Riggs, Stephen Return
Dakota Indians -- Missions; Riggs, Stephen Return, 1812-1883
"The party camped out over the Sabbath, and on Monday evening,
the seventh day after leaving Fort Sully, arrived at the Yankton
agency. Here, at the mission home of our friend J. P.
Williamson, the welcome was so warm, and the companionship so
pleasant, that Miss Bishop desired to spend a few days longer
than she had intended. She wanted to visit the schools, and
learn both here and at Santee agency something to help her when
she should go back to teach the Indian children on the Upper
Missouri. So she stayed behind, full of hope and zeal. But her
friends parted from her with foreboding in their hearts. In a
few days she was again attacked with her old trouble; she
rallied so as to get to her home, and to be again with her
mother and sister. But she sank rapidly, and, after some weeks
of severe suffering, she entered into rest.
"Writing of her, her sister said: 'Her favorite motto was,
"Simply to thy cross I cling." She trusted in Christ because he
has promised to save all who come to him. She enjoyed hearing
us sing to the last such hymns as, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul,"
"Nearer, my God, to Thee," "My Faith Looks up to Thee," "Father,
Whate'er of Earthly Bliss," "How Firm a Foundation," and
others.'
"Resting on Him who is able to save, she passed away.
"The work she loved, and so conscientiously carried on, has
fallen to other hands, but is not finished nor lost; and in the
homes she helped to make happy she is missed, yet her memory is
an abiding presence, cheering and encouraging.
"'And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that
feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall
be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my
jewels.'[8]"
[8] Mention should be made here of Rev. Samuel Ingham and his
wife, who joined the missionary force at Santee immediately
after the meeting of the Board at Minneapolis. Mr. Ingham was
suffering at the time from what was considered a temporary
malady, but which proved serious and ended his life Dec. 27,
1873. Mrs. Ingham continued in her work in the "Dakota Home,"
the new school for girls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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