REV. FLOYD SNELSON, _Moderator_. REV. A. P. MILLER, _Secretary_. * * * * * THE INDIANS. * * * * * THE LATE INDIAN WAR AND CHRISTIANITY. REV. MYRON EELLS, S’KOKOMISH, WASHINGTON TERRITORY. * * * * * We have had another Indian war, and, as usual, there has been a cry in favor of turning the Indians over to the War Department. There are some, however, of us who will persist in seeing something favorable to Christianity and the present policy even in this war, and we think we have our reasons for it. I do not propose, at present, to thoroughly discuss the causes of the war, for I am not well enough acquainted with them to do so intelligently. Some will lay the blame on Government, some on a Christian policy, and some on the Indians. Perhaps all may have to bear a part. Although I believe that the Government has often treated the Indians wrongfully, yet a long course of observation has convinced me that the Indians are not all saints, and when the Government is often crooked, either intentionally or unintentionally, and two crooked sticks come together, there is almost always sure to be trouble. The published statements of General Crook, who is not supposed to be very sentimental in his feelings toward the Indians, and who was at the Fort Hall Agency at the beginning of the war, implicates the Government severely. A residence of nearly three years in Idaho, 1871–1874, in the very region of the war, led me to believe that very little was energetically done for Christianizing those Indians. This has been true at some Agencies. Their annual reports show that while the Government opened wide the doors for Christian work, when the present policy was adopted, and said, “We will give you opportunity, encouragement and aid, if you will only send the Indians missionaries,” yet that Christians have failed to take hold of the work as they ought to have done. If this was true of the Indians engaged in the late war, Christians may have to bear a part of the blame.