American fiction -- 19th century; Historical fiction; Indians of North America -- Fiction
collected together, and published in a book, mankind would be astonished
at their lucidity and weight. As for scalping, it is a horrid thing in
our eyes, but it is honorable with the red men; and I have quoted to you
the words of the Psalmist, in order to show the manner in which divine
wisdom inflicts penalties on sin. Here is plain justification of
the practice, provided always that the sufferer be in the bondage of
transgression, and obnoxious to divine censure. Let no man, therefore,
in the pride of his learning, and, perhaps, of his prosperity, disdain
to believe things that are so manifestly taught and foretold; but let us
all bow in humble submission to the will of a Being who, to our finite
understanding, is so perfectly incomprehensible.”
We trust that no one of our readers will be disposed to deride Parson
Amen's speculations on this interesting subject, although this may
happen to be the first occasion on which he has ever heard the practice
of taking scalps justified by Scripture. Viewed in a proper spirit, they
ought merely to convey a lesson of humility, by rendering apparent
the wisdom, nay the necessity, of men's keeping them-selves within
the limits of the sphere of knowledge they were designed to fill, and
convey, when rightly considered, as much of a lesson to the Puseyite,
with abstractions that are quite as unintelligible to himself as they
are to others; to the high-wrought and dogmatical Calvinist, who in the
midst of his fiery zeal, forgets that love is the very essence of the
relation between God and man; to the Quaker, who seems to think the cut
of a coat essential to salvation; to the descendant of the Puritan, who
whether he be Socinian, Calvinist, Universalist, or any other “1st,”
appears to believe that the “rock” on which Christ declared he would
found his church was the “Rock of Plymouth”; and to the unbeliever,
who, in deriding all creeds, does not know where to turn to find one
to substitute in their stead. Humility, in matters of this sort, is the
great lesson that all should teach and learn; for it opens the way to
charity, and eventually to faith, and through both of these to hope;
finally, through all of these, to heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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