This study of the Bible influenced me a great deal; and my having to interpret made me fall into the habit of going to church regularly. My interest in church work grew.
In 1903, the government abolished the position of assistant farmer. In October of the following year, Mr. Hall’s son said to me, “We need an assistant missionary at Independence, and my father and I want to appoint you. Come and talk with my father about it.”
I went to Elbowoods and saw Mr. Hall. “Edward,” he asked, “are you willing to be our assistant missionary?”
“Yes,” I answered.
I knew some one must preach to the Independence Indians; and I thought I could do this, because I could speak their language as well as read English. I felt also that I was closer to God than I had been when I was baptized.
So I became Mr. Hall’s assistant, and have been in charge of the Independence station ever since. Every Sunday I preach to the Indians in the Hidatsa language. My text is the Sunday-school lesson of the week, for we Indians do not care for sermons, such as white men hear. Our older men cannot read English, and we do not have the Bible in our own tongue; we like best to hear the Sunday-school lesson because it explains the stories of the Bible, which my people cannot read for themselves.
Things do not always go smoothly in an Indian congregation. Frictions and misunderstandings arise, as I have heard they do in white churches; and Indians sometimes seek to become church members from unworthy motives. Our former life makes us Indians clannish; members of the same clan feel bound to help one another, and many Indians seem to look upon the church as a kind of clan. Sometimes a young man will say, “I will be baptized and join your church. Then all the Christians will work to make me agency policeman!”
Others, again, will say, “I want to join the church because I am sick; perhaps God will make me well!”
Some, with clearer faith, say, ”I want to become a Christian because I believe Jesus will save me to be a spirit with Him.” They mean that they hope Jesus will take them to live with Him when they die.
My uncle, Wolf Chief, says of the Christian way: “I traveled faithfully the way of the Indian gods, but they never helped me. When I was sick, I prayed to them, but they did not make me well. I prayed to them when my children died; but they did not answer me. I have but two children left, and I am going to trust God to keep these that they do not die like the others. I talk to God every day, as I would talk to my father; and I ask Him for everything I want. I try to do all that He bids me do. I hope that He will take my spirit to travel in that new heaven about which I have learned. I cannot change now. I can never go back to the old gods!”