The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
I would like to invite you to go with me on a tour of inspection of the
mission field itself. I would take my two ponies and drive out to the
Cheyenne River, and take you to one of our out-stations, and show you
something of the influences at work in the field to-day. As we went up
the valley, we would see the Indian village located there, and in the
midst, on a rising piece of ground, the mission station. Over some of
the houses we would see a red flag flying. That is a prayer, a votive
offering; there are sick in that house, and that is a prayer to the gods
that healing may come, and that death may be kept from them. Over on the
right we would see the dance-house--a great octagonal house with an open
roof, in which the Indians gather night after night to dance to the
monotonous beating of the drum. That is a very common sound out in the
Indian villages, bringing to us always that thought of slavery to evil.
As we go up to the station itself, we would see something more of the
work than you have as yet been able to see. If it be on the Sabbath, as
we go in we would see a young man there, with his audience before him,
not a very large audience--old men, old women, boys and girls--gathered
on the rough benches, and very much as they are in their own homes. Some
of the old women have their hair down over their faces, the boys with
dirty hands, old men with their dirty blankets, and yet they are
gathered around there to hear the word of life. The preacher, as he
stands before them, tells them of God's wonderful love, and takes as his
text that most wonderful verse in the Bible, "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son."
Then, as you look at the man who is preaching there, you would hardly
recognize in him one who thirteen years ago was a savage, a painted
Indian. As I look at him it seems a most wonderful thing that such a
change has taken place. I knew him as a savage; a splendid fellow he
was, and he is now a more splendid man than ever he was a savage; and he
is teaching the gospel of Christ to his own people. I have been out
there seventeen years, and if there were not another result to show for
those seventeen years of work than the lifting up of this Clarence Ward,
and making of him a man in Christ Jesus, I should be abundantly
satisfied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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