The absence of temples, worship, sacrifices, and all the observances to which superstition prompts the untutored mind, is a remarkable circumstance, and, as we have already remarked, led the early visiters to believe that the Indians were strangers to all religious ideas. Yet the missionaries found room to suspect that some of their great feasts, in which every thing presented must be eaten, bore an idolatrous character, and were held in honour of the Great Hare. The Ottawas, whose mythological system seems to have been the most complicated, were wont to keep a regular festival to celebrate the beneficence of the sun; on which occasion the luminary was told that this service was in return for the good hunting he had procured for his people, and as an encouragement to persevere in his friendly cares. They were also observed to erect an idol in the middle of their town, and sacrifice to it; but such ceremonies were by no means general. On first witnessing Christian worship, the only idea suggested by it was that of their asking some temporal good, which was either granted or refused. The missionaries mention two Hurons, who arrived from the woods soon after the congregation had assembled. Standing without, they began to speculate what it was the white men were asking, and then whether they were getting it. As the service continued beyond expectation, it was concluded they were _not_ getting it; and as the devotional duties still proceeded, they admired the perseverance with which this rejected suit was urged. At length, when the vesper hymn began, one of the savages observed to the other: “Listen to them now in despair, crying with all their might.”