"Indeed, to them, and to their veteran co-laborers, Rev. T. S. Williamson and Rev. S. R. Riggs, the credit is to be ascribed of having produced this rude and rich Dakota tongue to the learned world in a written and systematic shape, the lexicon prepared by their joint labors forming one of the publications of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington City, which has justly elicited the commendation of experts in philological lore, as a most valuable contribution to that branch of literature." While Mr. Pond was naturally ambitious, he was also peculiarly sensitive and retiring. When the writer was left with him at Lac-qui-parle, Dr. Williamson having gone to Ohio for the winter, although so much better master of the Dakota than I was at that time, he was unwilling to take more than a secondary part in the Sabbath services. "Dr. Williamson and you are ministers," he would say. And even years afterward, when he and his family had removed to the neighborhood of Fort Snelling, and he and his brother had built at Oak Grove, with the people of their first love, Gideon H. could hardly be persuaded that it was his duty to become a preacher of the Gospel. I remember more than one long conversation I had with him on the subject. He seemed to shrink from it as a little child, although he was then thirty-seven years old. In the spring of 1847, he and Mr. Robert Hopkins were licensed by the Dakota presbytery, and ordained in the autumn of 1848. We were not disappointed in our men. Mr. Hopkins gave evidence of large adaptation to the missionary work; but in less than three years he heard the call of the Master, and went up through a flood of waters. Mr. Pond, notwithstanding his hesitation in accepting the office, became a most acceptable and efficient and successful preacher and pastor. After the treaties of 1851, these Lower Sioux were removed to the Upper Minnesota. White people came in immediately and took possession of their lands. Mr. Pond elected to remain and labor among the white people. He very soon organized a church, which in a short time became a working, benevolent church--for some years the banner Presbyterian church of Minnesota in the way of benevolence. When, in 1873, Mr. Pond resigned his pastorate, he wrote in his diary, "I have preached to the people of Bloomington twenty years." He received home mission aid only a few years. We are very glad to have placed at our disposal so much of the private journal of the late Rev. G. H. Pond as relates to the wonderful work of God among the Dakotas in prison at Mankato, Minn., in the winter of 1862-63. The facts, in the main, have been published before; but the story, as told so simply and graphically by Mr. Pond, may well bear repeating. Mr. Pond arrived at Mankato Saturday, January 31, 1863, and remained until the afternoon of Tuesday, February 3:--