American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Sunday schools -- United States -- Periodicals
There was nothing unchildlike in her ways. She is said to have been
a peculiarly bright, active and happy child, growing to womanhood the
delight of her home and tenderly shielded from rude contact with the
world. But this noble woman, "so eminently fitted for usefulness in
circles of refinement," was called to spend her life among the degraded
Indians of the Northwest. There were those who thought it a great
wrong that such a beautiful and accomplished girl upon whose education
so much pains and money had been expended, should be given to the
Missionary work among the coarse, ignorant Indians. They thought that
some one less fit for the adornment of social life could do the work
as well. But both she and her parents felt that the best was not too
precious to be given to the Lord to be used wherever he directed. And
this is a thought that I would like you to stop over. Let us give our
best of everything to the Lord. And when we have given it let us be
willing that He should do with it as he sees fit. Sometimes we think we
are ready to give our best, but we would like to dictate as to where or
how it shall be used. Let us see to it that it is a complete surrender.
If you will look upon the map and trace the course of the Missouri
River you will come to a place marked Fort Sully, near the centre of
Dakota. To this far-away region as the wife of an Indian Missionary,
who was himself the son of a pioneer in Indian Missions, Nina Foster
went to make her home in a log cabin, shutting away from the busy
world her beauty and her talents, giving her young life to the cause
of Indian Missions. She gave herself to the work joyfully. We are told
that her "sense of humor and keen wit lightened many a load for herself
and others; the more forlorn and hopeless the situation, the more
elastic her spirits." She always made the best of everything. Even when
the road was so rough and the riding so insecure that she had to be
strapped in to keep from falling out of the wagon she made merry over
the circumstance instead of detailing it as a hardship. For five years
she labored among the Dakota Indian women, who speak of her as the
"beautiful woman who spoke so well." Then God called her to himself.
Was this life, with its beauty and its talents, wasted? We cannot think
so; we know not why God called her to bury herself for a few years
in that remote region, and then, just when the work seemed opening
before her, why he should call her away. Perhaps he wanted to show to a
doubting world that the cause of Missions was so important that for its
advancement he would use the very one whom the world looked upon as too
good for the work. Perhaps he wanted to prove to some doubter the power
of that love that would draw such an one as Nina Foster Riggs away from
the admiring and flattering circle in which she moved and lead her to
give herself to a life of self-sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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