“I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the deaths of little children are provided for. (Did you think life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport of all life, is not well provided for?) I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them, no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points. I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere, at any time, is provided for in the inherences of things. I do not think Life provides for all, and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all.” So, reader, I care not how it comes into your soul, so that you have it there, a rich and precious possession, this living, active, potential belief in immortality. If you know _you are_ now, and that you will never end, you will find that life itself becomes more enlarged and dignified. You will not be content with mere earthly aims, you will not rest satisfied to be a mere money-getter, but, realizing the immensity of your own capacities and powers, you will reach out for the eternal things, the realities that abide forever. For Joaquin Miller never wrote a truer word than when he said: “For all you can hold in your dead cold hand, Is what you have given away.” This forever settles a thoughtful man’s conception of mere acquisitiveness. Such gatherings-together are unworthy the soul that feels and knows its own immortality. It needs a larger aim, a more worthy object. Another thing in connection with what we call death, the white race may well learn from the Indian. How often does press and pulpit expend itself in finding superlatives to pour out in lavish eulogy over the dead, who, while alive, never did a thing to win the love of their fellows. Such eulogy is unknown among the Indians. The “preacher of an Indian funeral sermon” would no more dare wrongfully praise or laud his subject than he would falsely execrate him. He must speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and while he is not called upon to expatiate upon the wrong-doings, the foibles or weaknesses of his subject, he must say no word of praise that is not justly earned and strictly true. If this law were applied to the white race, what different funeral sermons and orations we should hear and read; and what different inscriptions we should read upon the tombstones found in our grave-yards. CHAPTER XXVII VISITING THE INDIANS