THE INDIANS.
LETTER FROM MISS COLLINS.
No facts in this field can be of more interest to the readers of the MISSIONARY than those contained in the following thrilling account of the conversion of three young Indians in Miss Collins' mission field. We give the facts as written by this self-sacrificing missionary.
Last Sabbath, Mr. Riggs came up from Oahe and we had communion, and there were five children baptized and seven grown people, and seven more were examined and advised to wait till the next communion. It was a most interesting season.
Three of the young men were the leaders in the Indian dance. They have always been the head ones in all Indian customs. A year ago, one of them said in the dance that he should follow the Indian customs a year longer—give himself up to them wholly and try to be satisfied, and if he had in his heart the same unsatisfied feeling, the same longing, that he then had, he should throw it all away.
On last New Year's day, the same young man, "Huntington Wolcott," came to me and said—"Last night I arose in the dance and told them that I had given the old customs and the old Indians a fair trial, and that they did not satisfy, now I should leave them forever and give myself to God, and if any others were ready to follow to arise and so make it known. The other two leaders arose, stood silently a moment, and walked out." From that time they have given themselves up to singing, praying and studying the Bible. They had, for two years, been halting between two opinions, attending the school, church, etc., and the Indian feasts and dances, too. These three having come out so boldly on God's side, has made a great change in our work here.
Poor old Running-Antelope feels very sad. It is his desire to keep the young men from learning Christianity and civilization as long as he can. He wants them to have everything in common, and to feel that for an individual to accumulate anything is a disgrace. As long as they feel so, of course squalor and suffering will be the natural consequences.