Some of the people near that school-house are anxious for better instruction, and have applied to the Association for a minister.
Another school-house, two miles from one of the A. M. A., has been used for meetings held by a regularly licensed minister who does not know a letter. Some of his members say “his sermons beat the ’postle Paul,” and if noise and violent gestures count, probably they are right.
There are many such preachers as those I have told you of, but where the true light is brought by the American Missionary Association and other missions, they are driven out, or are coming to the light to prepare for better work.
FOR THE CHILDREN.
Santee Agency, Neb., June, 1887.
To My Friends at the East:
I want to write you a letter. First I want to tell you about my home and my people, how they are, and their ways. I suppose you know their old way of living, but let me tell you a part of it again. The general way is to dance, and give away ponies, and worship stones. They have “visions of the deer,” and think themselves sacred. They have foolish “visions of the bear,” and think themselves sacred. They do not go to war now. But when they used to go to war, they first tied up parcels of tobacco and took them around to the houses of the men they trusted in, and, opening the door of the house, they led out the brave man. Then the women appeared glad, and would dance and shout. So they did; and right away they would go off to war, and kill men, and bring home their scalps, or else the hands of the slain, tied to their horses.