Why, then, after 300 years of the presence of Christianity on this continent, have not the Indians been civilized? does any one ask. Rather, when we think of the way that the Indians have been treated, our surprise shall be that any of them have accepted the gospel. And yet despite all of the difficulties, Dr. Jas. E. Rhoades affirmed that there is no field of mission enterprise which has yielded larger returns than that of our native tribes. Indians have been reached by the gospel, and that, too, in a very remarkable degree. The “five civilized tribes,” as they are called, of the Indian Territory, are practically a Christian people; 81,621 Indians wear citizens’ dress wholly, and 59,695 wear citizens’ dress in part; 43,423 Indians labor in civilized pursuits, and of this number 9,612 are farmers; 21,232 houses are occupied by 40,000 Indians as dwellings; and the significant thing about all this is that this most promising state of things has chiefly come about since the inauguration of the Government’s Peace Policy during the Presidency of General Grant, when Christian missions and Christian schools were multiplied, and the Government, in co-operation, made an honest effort to keep faith with the Indian, and to give him, at least, a show of justice. When the Indian was given the chance, he was found ready to accept it. The facts are most encouraging. Wonderful has been the progress the gospel has made among these people during the last fifteen years. But the field is vast, and, in comparison with the needs, only a beginning has been made. There are 40,000 wild Indian children in the country. Of this number, all told, there are but 12,000 gathered in the Government and mission schools, leaving 28,000 children to whom no school opens its door, and to whom no Christian missionary comes. There are at least sixty whole tribes upon whose darkness no ray of gospel light has ever fallen, as pagan and as savage as were their ancestors when the first white man landed upon these shores!
You have given yourself to this work, my brother, at an auspicious time—at a time luminously prophetic of grand results. God’s bell strikes the hour. Providential lines converge. The machinations of wicked men are growing less. Our government is shaping itself to do right. Our legislators are becoming more humane in their attitude. The voice of the people is rising louder and louder, and becoming more united in its demand for justice. The Christian church is awaking to a sense of its responsibility. The seed planted by Elliot, and Mayhew, and Wheelock, is fruiting in the reviving interest in Indian missions that to-day is seen spreading among the churches. The Indian turns his face towards the sunlight. He stretches out his hands for help. Confidingly he places his destiny in our keeping. To help him into the light and the manhood of the gospel is a work that an angel might covet. To that work you have given yourself, to that work this Council has consecrated you, and into that work we will all follow you with our God-speed and benediction.
THE CHINESE.
EVANGELISTIC WORK.
All that I can report on this point is that we are feeling our way towards something effective—praying continually, and watching diligently for an answer to our prayer, that God will raise up some Chinese believer and endue him with such power that he may not only disciple those already gathered in our schools, but may make his voice to be heard among the perishing crowds that now refuse to enter our opened doors, and love darkness rather than light.
For three months past we have had Loo Quong in the field—a faithful and beloved missionary helper, previously serving in our Central school in San Francisco. He spent one month in Oroville, one in Marysville, and is about completing a third in Stockton. At each of these points he was joyfully welcomed, and his abundant labors were rewarded by some measure of success. But that for which we pray we have not yet secured, though it waits for us, I am sure, in the gracious purpose of our Lord.
In March, I visited these three missions, and the one in Sacramento also, to which our brother will go as soon as his labors in Stockton are closed. As usual, my observations both lifted me up and cast me down. Most of what is discouraging might have been averted if we had fit Chinese helpers in sufficient numbers, and the means to sustain them. The American teachers at these points are specially faithful, skillful and devoted, but nothing can make up for the loss entailed by the absence of effective Chinese helpers.