29th. Mr. B. E. Stickney, of Vistula (now Toledo), writes: "A few days ago I received from the author, with which I was much pleased, 'an Address before the Chippewa County Temperance Society on the Influence of Ardent Spirits on the Condition of the North American Indians.' We conceived it to be the most fortunate effort of your pen upon the greatest subject. While we have so much reason to approve, we hope you will permit us to be frank. We conceive that, although you have been more cautious than is common, in touching sectarianism, yet, if you had not named, or made any kind of allusion to any religious sect, Christian, Jew, Pagan, or Mohammedan, you would have produced more effect. There are many individuals who neither touch, taste, nor handle this most dangerous of all poisons, who yet refuse to join in the general effort to destroy, prevent the use, or furnish an antidote, because they conceive that the sectarian poison is not an inferior evil, unless it may, perhaps, be so to the use of alcohol."
The true, but concealed, objection of this class of non-concurrents in the cause is not, it is apprehended to "sectarianism," per se, or in any other sense than that it is an evidence of practical Christianity--of morals and axioms based on the teachings of the great Founder of the system--of a belief in a moral accountability to give all influence possessed to advance the adoption of its maxims among men--in fine, of a living, constant, undying faith, not only in the truth of these maxims, but in the divinity of the sublime UTTERER of them.
Dec. 10th. Dr. Houghton, my companion in two expeditions into the Indian country, writes from Detroit: "You will undoubtedly be a little surprised to learn that I am now in Detroit, but probably not more than I am in being here. My passage through Lake Huron was tedious beyond endurance; and so long was I detained in consequence of it, that it became useless for me to proceed to New York. Under these circumstances, after having visited Fredonia, I determined to engage in the practice of my profession, in this place, at least until spring. It is only these three days since I arrived here and I am not yet completely settled, but probably will be in a few days."
[Here are the initial motives of a man who became a permanent and noted citizen of the territory, and engaged with great ardor in exploring its physical geography and resources. For two years, he was intimately associated with me; and I saw him under various circumstances of fatigue and trial in the wilderness, but always preserving his equanimity and cheerfulness. He was a zealous botanist, and a discriminating geologist. Assiduous and temperate, an accurate observer of phenomena, he accumulated facts in the physical history of the country which continually increased the knowledge of its features and character. He was the means of connecting geological observations with the linear surveys of the General Land Office, and had been several years engaged on the geological survey of Michigan, when the melancholy event of his death, in 1846, in a storm on Lake Superior, was announced.]
12th. E.A. Brush, Esq., of Detroit, writes: "Everybody--not here only, but through the Union--seems to think with just foreboding of the result of the measures taken by South Carolina. Their convention have determined to resist, after the first day of (I think) February.
"Gov. Cass's family are well, but he has not been heard from personally since he left here. He is too much occupied, I suppose, with the affairs of his department, at the opening of the session. Of course, you know that General Jackson and Van Buren are in."
CHAPTER XLVI.
An Indian woman builds a church--Conchology--South Carolina prepares to resist the revenue laws--Moral affairs--Geography--Botany--Chippewas and Sioux--A native evangelist in John Sunday--His letter in English; its philological value--The plural pronoun we--An Indian battle--Political affairs--South Carolina affairs--Tariff compromise of Mr. Clay--Algic Society; it employs native evangelists--Plan of visiting Europe--President's tour--History of Detroit--Fresh-water shells--Lake tides--Prairie--Country--Reminiscence.
1833. Jan. 1st. A remarkable thing recently transpired. Mrs. Susan Johnston, a widow--an Indian woman by father and mother--built a church for the Presbyterian congregation at this place. The building, which is neat and plain, without a steeple, was finished early in the fall, and has been occupied this season for preaching, lectures, &c. Certainly, on the assumption of theories, there is nothing predicted against the descendants of Shem ministering in good things to those of Japhet; but it is an instance, the like of which I doubt whether there has happened since the Discovery. The translation of the Indian name of this female is Woman of the Green Valley; or, according to the polysyllabical system of her people, O-shé-wush-ko-da-wá-qua.