THE INDIANS.
Mr. George W. Reed, of the last class of the Hartford Theological Seminary, has been appointed by the American Missionary Association a missionary to the Dakota Indians. He was ordained a minister of the gospel of Christ, on Tuesday, May 17th, by a council called by the Olivet Congregational Church of Springfield, Mass., at Springfield. Mr. Reed is a member of the Olivet Church. The sermon was preached by Prof. Llewellyn Pratt, of the Hartford Seminary. Ordaining prayer by Rev. Wm. Thompson, D.D., also of the Hartford Seminary. Right hand of fellowship by Rev. Michael Burnham, of Springfield. Charge to the candidate by Secretary Powell.
By request, we publish a portion of the charge to the candidate:
I charge you to remember that the interest which this Council expresses in Indian missions is in the line of our historic development. Away back in the year 1644, the General Court of Massachusetts ordained “that the County Courts in this jurisdiction shall take care that the Indians in the several shires be civilized, and the courts shall have power to take order from time to time to have the Indians instructed in the knowledge of God.” In 1646 John Elliot, a Congregational minister, was at work as a missionary among the Indians. He translated his famous Indian Bible, the first and for many years the only Bible printed in America, gathered the Indians into communities by themselves, and in 1647 had 14 Indian villages, with 1,400 praying Indians, organized into 24 regular congregations, in charge of 24 native pastors, and the discipline of the churches and the qualifications of the ministers were fully up to the Puritan standard then required. In 1743 Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, of Lebanon, Conn., another Congregational minister, took up the work where Elliot had laid it down, and out of his missionary labors grew Dartmouth College, an institution that stands to-day a proud monument of New England Congregationalism’s early interest in the education and evangelization of the Indian.
In 1810 the American Board came into existence, and in 1815 we find it adopting measures for carrying the gospel to the Indians. So rapid did its work grow in that direction, that in 1830 three-fourths of all the church members in its missions were Indians. In 1846 the American Missionary Association was formed, and of the 30 missionaries who held its commission the first year, 11 were missionaries to the Indians. In 1883 the American Board, deciding to prosecute its work exclusively in foreign lands, turned over its Indian missions to the American Missionary Association. So that you see what this Council has done to-night is in the line of our historical development, and connects your life and work in an unbroken line with the early history of Congregationalism in its efforts to reach the Indians.
I charge you to remember that in your special mission, justice, as a Christian principle to be observed in all our dealings with our fellow men, must find in you a champion. This because of the fearful wrongs that, in the name of religion, have been committed against the people to whom you go.
In the person of the poor Indian, entitled to all his rights as a man, Christ has been standing in the presence of the white man’s civilization on this continent for upwards of three hundred years, asking for justice, and it has not yet been accorded him. A most shameful record is the history of the white man’s dealings with the Indians, whether read in the conduct of individuals or in the conduct of the Government. The white man, by reason of his intelligence, his resources and his numerical superiority, had the ability to cheat, rob, and overpower the Indian, and putting his sense of justice out of sight, he has proceeded to cheat and rob and overpower him. Between the years 1778 and 1871, the people of the United States have made with the Indians 649 treaties, and the majority of them they have violated. By these treaties nearly all of the territory of the United States has been acquired—a territory that by reason of its vastness is at present the home of 50,000,000 white men, prospectively to become the home of at least 150,000,000 more—a territory that by reason of its marvellous resources of climate, soil and minerals, has produced a wealth already rivaling that of the oldest nations, and promising in the not far distant future to surpass them all. This territory has nearly all of it been deeded by the Indians to the people of the United States, on condition that the Government should compensate them by money annuities in cash payment, or their equivalent in food, clothing, agricultural implements, and instruction in farming and trades; by establishing and maintaining schools for the education of their children, and rigidly excluding white intruders from their reservations.
Well, we have got the territory, but what about the conditions? The money agreed upon has not been paid; the rations stipulated for have not been issued; the schools promised have not been maintained, and white intruders upon the reservations have not been excluded. From pillar to post these children of the forest have been driven. As fast as the white man has wanted the Indian’s land, a reason has been speedily found for violating the treaty and consummating the robbery. The savage has been goaded to go on the war path by white men’s villainy, and then the Government has been obliged to go out and whip him into submission; and, as a punishment for crime he never would have perpetrated had he not been driven to it, move him elsewhere, and divide up his land among his despoilers.
My brother, remember as you stand to preach the gospel among the Indians it will be your precious privilege to show that the wrongs and injustice they have suffered at the hands of the white man have been inflicted in opposition to the teachings of Christianity and in defiance of its commands.
I charge you to remember that your mission gives repeated emphasis to the faith of the Christian church in the redeemability of the Indian. Lack of faith in this truth has been the cause of much of the cruel indifference on the part of many good people—even Christian people—to the wrongs that Indians have suffered, and has occasioned lack of enthusiasm in the prosecution of Indian missions. It has paralyzed endeavor, and prepared the way for the indulgence of enmity. But notice this: No body of Christians have ever put themselves on record as not believing in the Indian’s redeemability. Stories of massacre and one-sided testimony, when the Indian could not have a hearing, have led many Christians by their opposition to Indian missions, unwittingly to array themselves against the gospel. They did not think, in taking up the cry, “There is no good Indian but a dead Indian,” “The Indian cannot be civilized,” “The Indian should be exterminated,” and other such falsehoods, that they were denying the Christian faith and practically proclaiming that there was no salvation for themselves nor for anyone else; yet that was precisely what they were doing, for if the Indian cannot be redeemed, then no one can be redeemed. If the gospel cannot save the lowest, then there is no salvation for the highest. The Indian is a man, and Christ tasted death for every man, and he is able to save to the uttermost every man. That lowest savage, wretched and vile as he is, can be redeemed, and in this redemption can be raised to highest manhood. All culture and excellence of mind and heart are attainable to him whose soul has felt the redeeming power of Christ’s salvation.
Why, then, after 300 years of the presence of Christianity on this continent, have not the Indians been civilized? does any one ask. Rather, when we think of the way that the Indians have been treated, our surprise shall be that any of them have accepted the gospel. And yet despite all of the difficulties, Dr. Jas. E. Rhoades affirmed that there is no field of mission enterprise which has yielded larger returns than that of our native tribes. Indians have been reached by the gospel, and that, too, in a very remarkable degree. The “five civilized tribes,” as they are called, of the Indian Territory, are practically a Christian people; 81,621 Indians wear citizens’ dress wholly, and 59,695 wear citizens’ dress in part; 43,423 Indians labor in civilized pursuits, and of this number 9,612 are farmers; 21,232 houses are occupied by 40,000 Indians as dwellings; and the significant thing about all this is that this most promising state of things has chiefly come about since the inauguration of the Government’s Peace Policy during the Presidency of General Grant, when Christian missions and Christian schools were multiplied, and the Government, in co-operation, made an honest effort to keep faith with the Indian, and to give him, at least, a show of justice. When the Indian was given the chance, he was found ready to accept it. The facts are most encouraging. Wonderful has been the progress the gospel has made among these people during the last fifteen years. But the field is vast, and, in comparison with the needs, only a beginning has been made. There are 40,000 wild Indian children in the country. Of this number, all told, there are but 12,000 gathered in the Government and mission schools, leaving 28,000 children to whom no school opens its door, and to whom no Christian missionary comes. There are at least sixty whole tribes upon whose darkness no ray of gospel light has ever fallen, as pagan and as savage as were their ancestors when the first white man landed upon these shores!
You have given yourself to this work, my brother, at an auspicious time—at a time luminously prophetic of grand results. God’s bell strikes the hour. Providential lines converge. The machinations of wicked men are growing less. Our government is shaping itself to do right. Our legislators are becoming more humane in their attitude. The voice of the people is rising louder and louder, and becoming more united in its demand for justice. The Christian church is awaking to a sense of its responsibility. The seed planted by Elliot, and Mayhew, and Wheelock, is fruiting in the reviving interest in Indian missions that to-day is seen spreading among the churches. The Indian turns his face towards the sunlight. He stretches out his hands for help. Confidingly he places his destiny in our keeping. To help him into the light and the manhood of the gospel is a work that an angel might covet. To that work you have given yourself, to that work this Council has consecrated you, and into that work we will all follow you with our God-speed and benediction.