"'I take my child by the hand, and my wife follows after me. Our hands and our feet are torn by the sharp rocks, and our trail is marked by our blood. At last I see a rift in the rocks. A little way beyond there are green prairies. The swift-running water, the Niobrara, pours down between the green hills. There are the graves of my fathers. There again we will pitch our teepee and build our fires. I see the light of the world and of liberty just ahead.'
"The old chief became silent again, and, after an appreciable pause, he turned toward the judge with such a look of pathos and suffering on his face that none who saw it will forget it, and said:—
"'But in the center of the path there stands a man. Behind him I see soldiers in number like the leaves of the trees. If that man gives me the permission, I may pass on to life and liberty. If he refuses, I must go back and sink beneath the flood.'
"Then, in a lower tone, 'You are that man.'
"There was silence in the court as the old chief sat down. Tears ran down over the judge's face. General Crook leaned forward and covered his face with his hands. Some of the ladies sobbed.
"All at once that audience, by one common impulse, rose to its feet, and such a shout went up as was never heard in a Nebraska court-room. No one heard Judge Dundy say, 'Court is dismissed.' There was a rush for Standing Bear. The first to reach him was General Crook. I was second. The ladies flocked around him, and for an hour Standing Bear had a reception."
A few days afterward Judge Dundy handed down his famous decision, in which he announced that an Indian was a "person," and was entitled to the protection of the law. Standing Bear and his followers were set free; and, with his old wagon and the body of the dead child, he went back to the hunting-grounds of his fathers, and buried the body with tribal honors. —Indian Journal.
Some Things We Need
The courage born of God, not man,
The truth to speak, cost what it may;
The patience to endure the trials
That form a part of every day;
The purpose firm, the will to do
The right, wherever we may be;
The wisdom to reprove the faults
That in our loved ones we may see,—
Reprove in tone and spirit sweet,
And ne'er in temper's eloquence;
The heart to love the ones in wrong,
While wrong we hate in every sense;
The strength to do our daily task
As unto God,—for we're his own,—
To seek his approbation sweet,
And not men's praise, fame, or renown,—
These, these, and more, are things we need
If Christ we'd represent indeed.