Corrupt manners and degrading customs never exist, in conjunction with a pure religious system. The outlines of social institutions are metaphysically coincident with the limits of piety; and the refinement of morals depends upon the purity of faith. We may thus determine the prevailing spirit of a national religion, by observation of domestic manners and habits; and, among all the relations of life, that of parent and child is the best index to degree of advancement. Filial piety is but the secondary manifestation of a devotional heart; and attachment and obedience to a father on earth, are only imperfect demonstrations of love to our Father in heaven. What, then--to apply the principle--is the state of this sentiment in the Indian? By the answer to that question, we shall be able to estimate the value of his religious notions, and to determine the amount of hope, for his conversion, justified by their possession. The answer may be given in a few words: There is no such sentiment in the Indian character. Children leave their infirm parents to die alone, and be eaten by the wolves;[32] or treat them with violent indignity,[33] when the necessity of migration gives no occasion for this barbarous desertion. Young savages have been known to beat their parents, and even to kill them; but the display of attachment or reverence for them, is quite unknown. Like the beast of the forest, they are no sooner old enough to care for themselves, than they cease even to remember, by whose care they have become so; and the slightest provocation will produce a quarrel with a father, as readily as with a stranger. The unwritten law of the Indian, about which so many writers have dreamed, enacts no higher penalty for parricide, than for any other homicide; and a command to honor his father and mother because they _are_ his father and mother, would strike the mind of an Indian as simply absurd. If the possession of a religion, whose fruits are no better than these, can, of itself, give ground for hope to the Christian philanthropist, let him cherish it fondly. But it is much to be feared, that the existence of such a system indefinitely postpones, if it does not entirely preclude, the Indian's conversion. Even a bird which has never known the forest, will eventually escape to the wilds which God has made its home; and the young Indian, who has been reared in the city, will fly to the woods and prairies, and return to the faith of his fathers, because these, and only these, will satisfy his nature.[34]