Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884Eells, Myron
Religion
Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884
Eells, Myron
Clallam Indians -- Missions; Missions -- Washington (State); Skokomish Indian Reservation (Wash.); Twana Indians -- Missions
A rather singular incident happened a year later. Some of the older
Indians, including the chief, were not satisfied with the slow growth of
the church; but instead of remedying affairs by coming out boldly for
Christ, they chose three young men, who were believed to be moral at
least, and asked them to join and help the cause along. These consented,
although they had never taken any part in religious services or been
known as Christians. As I was not informed of the wish until Sabbath
morning, I did not think it wise to receive them then, but replied that
if they held out well until my next visit, in five months, I should have
no objection. They were hardly willing at first to wait so long, but at
last submitted. Before the five months had passed, one of them, the
least intelligent, had gone back to his old ways, where he still
remains, and the other two were received into the church, one of whom
has done especially well and has been superintendent of the
Sabbath-school. Yet it always seemed a singular way of becoming
Christians, more as if made so by others than of their own free will,
they simply consenting to the wishes of others. God works in various
ways.
During the winter of 1880-81 a medicine-man made a feast on Sabbath
evening and invited all the Indians to it. It was to be, however, a bait
for a large amount of tamahnous, which was to take place. The Indians
went, the members of the church as well as the rest, leaving the evening
service in order to attend it. The school-teacher felt very badly and
wrote me immediately about it; but a little later he learned that on
that same evening the Christian Indians, feeling that they were doing
wrong, left the place before the feast was over, went to one of their
houses, where they held a prayer-meeting and confessed their sin, and on
the following Thursday evening, at the general prayer-meeting made a
public confession. We could ask for nothing more, but could thank the
Holy Spirit for inclining them thus to do before any white person had
spoken to them about it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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