"Morning is coming! Morning is coming! Wake up! Wake up! Come to sing! Come to pray."
Very soon, the sweet music of prayer and praise from the white teepees on the hillside, rose sweetly on the air, telling us that the day of their glad solemnities had begun. The great congregation assembled in the open air. Pastor Renville, who as a little lad played at the feet of the translators of the Bible into the Sioux language, and who as a young man organized a counter revolution among the Christian Indians in favor of the government in the terrible days of '62, presided with dignity, baptizing a little babe and receiving several recent converts into the church. A man of rare powers and sweet temperament is the Rev. John Baptiste Renville, youngest son of the famous Joseph Renville. A wonderfully strange gathering is this. Hundreds of Indians seated in semi-circles on the grass, reverently observing the Lord's Supper. Probably one-third of the males in that assemblage were participants in the bloody wars of the Sioux nation. The sermon was delivered by Solomon His-Own-Grandfather, who had taken an active part in the war of 1862, but was now a missionary among his own people in Manitoba. The bread was broken by Artemas Ehnamane ("Walking Along"), who was condemned and pardoned, and then converted after that appalling tragedy in 1862. The wine was poured by the man whom all the Sioux lovingly call John (Dr. John P. Williamson) who led them in the burning revival scenes in the prison-camp at Fort Snelling in 1863. And as he referred to those thrilling times, their tears flowed like rain. It is said that Indians cannot weep, but scores of them wept that day at Ascension. One of the officiating elders was a son of the notorious chieftain Little Crow, who was so prominent against the Anglo-Saxons in those days of carnage. As we partook of those visible symbols of our Saviour's broken body, and shed blood, with this peculiar congregation, so recently accustomed to the war-whoop and the scalp-dance, we freely mingled our tears with theirs. And as our minds ranged over the vast Dakota field and as we remembered the thousands of Christian Sioux, their Presbytery and their Association, their scores of churches and their many Sabbath Schools, their Y.M.C.A. and their Y.P.S.C.E. associations, their missionary societies and other beneficent organizations, their farms and homes, their present pure, happy condition, and contrasted it with their former superstition, nakedness and filthy teepee life, we sang joyfully;
Behold! What wondrous works
Have, by the Lord, been wrought;
Behold! What precious souls
Have, by His blood, been bought.
As the shades of evening drew on, the different bands held their farewell meetings in their teepees. There were sounds of sweet music—joyous ones—echoing and re-echoing over the prairies—"He leadeth me, Oh precious thought," "Nearer, my God to thee," "Blessed Assurance, Jesus hath given"—until the whole was blended in one grand refrain:—
"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of Christian minds