In the following verses Dr. A. McG. Beede of Fort Yates, North Dakota, has translated a prayer he once heard uttered by an old man of the Dakota nation who had just come from bathing in the river and was standing upon a hill giving expression to his feeling of adoration:
Spirit of Life in things above
And lovelier in things below,
We pray to Thee, All-being-love,
Spontaneous in our hearts to grow.
Our Father Life, we live in Thee
And pray for glory which is Thine,
And by our living may we be
As Thou art in the Life divine.
The trees and flowers and watersprings
Are singing good old songs of mirth,
So may we sing while music brings
The good old joy o’er all the earth.
Spirit of Life, sing on, sing on;
Sing till our aching hearts find rest
And anxious fear is past and gone,
And like the rivers we are blest.
The earth is singing, hark the song;
The whispering breezes floating by,
The waterstreams gliding along,
Reflecting faces in the sky.
Spirit of Life, we worship Thee,
With waterstreams and trees and flowers;
So may our new-born spirits be
As Thou art, and Thy glory ours.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATIVE LIFE
People of European race resident in America, (Americans we call ourselves) have sentimental regard toward the plants and animals native to Europe, some of which, domesticated by our ancestors, we have brought with us to America. But most of our people have not developed such sentiments toward the plants and animals native to America. Literary allusions, songs and stories refer to trees, flowers, birds and other forms of life pertaining to our old home lands in Europe, but not to those of America. People of our race have been inhabitants of America now for three centuries, and still we have not made ourselves at home here; we have not formed sentimental attachment to the land and to its native forms of life.
It is a pity for a people not to be so attached to the country in which they live that their sentiments shall be first of all for the forms of life that are native to their own country. Otherwise there is a disharmony which lessens happiness and is harmful in many ways.