It pleased God to make this winter one of fruitfulness. Mr. Renville was active in persuading those under his influence to attend the religious meetings, the school-room was crowded on Sabbaths, and the Word, imperfectly as it was spoken, was used by the Spirit upon those dark minds. There was evidently a quickening of the church. They were interested in prayer. What is prayer?—and how shall we pray? became questions of interest with them. One woman who had received at her baptism the name of Catherine, and who still lives a believing life at the end of forty years, was then troubled to know how prayer could reach God. I told her in this we were all little children. God recognized our condition in this respect, and had told us that, as earthly fathers and mothers were willing, and desirous of giving good gifts to their children, he was more willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. Besides, he made the ear, and shall he not hear? He made, in a large sense, all language, and shall he not be able to understand Dakota words? The very word for “pray” in the Dakota language was “to cry to”—chakiya. Prayer was now, as through all ages it had been, the child’s cry in the ear of the Great Father. So there appeared to be a working upward of many hearts. Early in February Mr. Pond, Mr. Renville, and Mr. Huggins, Mr. Gavan and myself, after due examination and instruction, agreed to receive ten Dakotas into the church—all women. I baptized them and their children—twenty-eight in all—on one Sabbath morning. It was to us a day of cheer. To these Dakota Gentiles also God had indeed opened the door of faith. Blessed be his name for ever and ever.
“Dec. 6, 1838.
“This is our little Alfred’s natal day. He of course has received no birthday sugar or earthen toys, and his only gift of such a kind has been a very small bow and arrow, from an Indian man, who is a frequent visitor. The bow is about three-eighths of a yard long and quite neatly made, but Alfred uses it as he would any other little stick. I do not feel desirous that he should prize a bow or a gun as do these sons of the prairie. My prayer is that he may early become a lamb of the Good Shepherd’s fold, that while he lives he may be kept from the fierce wolf and hungry lion, and at length be taken home to the green pastures and still waters above.”
“Feb. 9, 1839.
“We mentioned in our last encouraging prospects here. The forenoon schools, which are for misses and children, have some days been crowded during the few past weeks, and a Sabbath-school recently opened has been so well attended as to encourage our hopes of blessed results. Last Lord’s day we had a larger assembly than have ever before met for divine worship in this heathen land. More than eighty were present.”
As Mr. Gavan was a native Frenchman and a scholar, we expected much from his presence with us, during the winter, in the way of obtaining translations. He and Mr. Renville could communicate fully and freely through that language, and we believed he would be able to explain such words as were not well understood by the other. And so we commenced the translation of the Gospel of John from the French. But it soon became apparent that the perfection of knowledge, of which they both supposed themselves possessed, was a great bar to progress. And by the time we had reached the end of the seventh chapter, the relations of the two Frenchmen were such as to entirely stop our work. We were quite disappointed. But this event induced us the sooner to gird ourselves for the work of translating the Bible from the original tongues, and so was, in the end, a blessing.
CHAPTER IV.
1838-1840.—“Eagle Help.”—His Power as War Prophet.—Makes No-Flight Dance.—We Pray Against It.—Unsuccessful on the War-Path.—Their Revenge.—Jean Nicollet and J. C. Fremont.—Opposition to Schools.—Progress in Teaching.—Method of Counting.—“Lake That Speaks.”—Our Trip to Fort Snelling.—Incidents of the Way.—The Changes There.—Our Return Journey.—Birch-Bark Canoe.—Mary’s Story.—“Le Grand Canoe.”—Baby Born on the Way.—Walking Ten Miles.—Advantages of Travel.—My Visit to the Missouri River.—“Fort Pierre.”—Results.
“Eagle Help” was a good specimen of a war prophet and war leader among the Dakotas. At the time of the commencement of the mission, he was a man of family and in middle age, but he was the first man to learn to read and write his language. And from the very first, no one had clearer apprehensions of the advantages of that attainment. He soon became one of the best helps in studying the Dakota, and the best critical helper in translations. He wanted good pay for a service, but he was ever ready to do it, and always reliable. When my horse failed me, on the trip up from Fort Snelling, and I had walked fifty miles, Eagle Help was ready, for a consideration (my waterproof coat), to go on foot and bring up the baggage I had left. And in the early spring of 1839, when Mr. Pond would remove his family—wife and child—to join his brother in the work near Fort Snelling, Eagle Help was the man to pilot his canoe down the Minnesota.