Then on the bosom of the river the red man’s children might play in light canoe, or sportive dive, to catch the mimic stars that seemed to live beneath its flow, to light the homes of finny tribes who peopled then its crystal chambers.
Now, it is turgid and slow, and pent with obstructions to make it flow in channels where its power is wanted to complete the wreck of forests that once had made it cool, fit beverage for nature’s children, or is muddied with the noisy wheels of commerce, struggling to rob the once happy home of Pow-e-shiek, of the charms and richness of soil that nature’s God had given.
The prairies, too, at that time, were like a shoreless sea when, half in anger, the winds resist the ebb or flow of its tides; or they may be likened to the clouds, which seem to be mirrored on their waving surface, sporting in the summer air, or, at the command of the Great Spirit, hurry to join some gathering tempest, where He speaks in tones of thunder, as if to rebuke the people for their crimes.
Where once the wild deer roamed at will is enlivened now by the welcome call of lowing herds of tamer kind.
The waving grass, and fragrant flowers, too, gave way to blooming maize of finer mould.
The old trails have been buried like the feet that made them, beneath the upturned sod.
And now, while I am writing, this lovely valley rings out a chant of praise to God, for his beneficence, instead of the weird wild song of Pow-e-shiek and his people at their return from crusades against their enemies.
Who shall say the change that time and civilization have wrought, have not brought nearer the hour, “When man, no more an abject thing, shall from the sleep of ages spring,” and be what God designed him, “pure and free?”
No one, however deeply he may have drank from the fount of justice and right, can fail to see, in the transformation wrought on this fair land, the hand of Him whose finger points out the destiny of his peculiar people, and yearly gives token of his approbation, by the return of seasons, bringing rich reward to the hands of those whom he has called to perform the wonders of which I write, in compensation for the hardships they endured, while the transit was being made from the perfection of untamed life to the higher state of civilization.
While we praise Him who overrules all, we cannot fail to honor His instrumentalities.