Faith in a risen Saviour, was the keynote of his ministry. As he said: "Who of all the Saviours of the Indian people has risen from the dead? Not one." "Our fathers told us many things and gave us many customs, but they were not true." "I grew up believing in what my father taught me, but when I knew of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I believed in Him and put aside all my ways." It was to him in truth, the coming out of darkness into light. "Sins are like wolves," he said. "They abound in the darkness and destroy men. When we enter the way, Jesus watches over us. Be awake and follow Him. All over the world men are beginning to follow Christ. The day is here." "Repent, believe, obey."
He loved to sing:
"Saved, by grace, alone;
That is all my plea;
Jesus died for all mankind;
Jesus died for me."
The twenty grand-children of the old Sioux—all of school age—are diligently prosecuting their studies in order to be prepared to meet the changed conditions which civilization has made possible for the Indians. One of his grand-sons is a physician now, in a fair practice among his own people.
This man President Lincoln wisely pardoned, knowing full well what a great influence for good such a man could wield over his turbulent people. And the President was not disappointed. One of his sons has been a missionary among the Swift Bear tribe at the Rose Bud Agency for twenty years; another son has been a missionary at Standing Rock, on the Grand River, and is now pastor of an Indian congregation on Basile Creek, Nebraska, and is also an important leader of his tribe. The Rev. Francis Frazier, one of his sons, was installed September 10, 1902, as his father's successor in the pastorate of Pilgrim church at Santee.
His married daughter is also very earnest in the woman's work in the church. Seventy-seven years of age at his death, Rev. Artemas Ehnamane had filled to overflowing with good deeds to offset the first half, when he fought against the encroachments of the whites and the advance of civilization with as much zeal as later he evinced in his religious and beneficent life. Abraham Lincoln pardoned Ehnamane and the old warrior never forgot it. But it was another pardon he prized more highly than that. It was this pardon he preached and died believing.