“Our hearts were gladdened last Sabbath by receiving into our church
three of the Indian school-boys, each of them supposed to be about
thirteen years old. We had kept them on virtual probation for nearly a
year, until I began to feel that to do so any longer would be an injury
both to themselves and others. Their conduct, especially toward their
school-teacher, although not perfect, has been so uniformly Christian
that those who were best acquainted with them felt the best satisfied
in regard to their change of heart. Said a member of our church of about
fifty years’ Christian experience: ‘I wish that some of the white
children whom we have received into the church had given half as good
evidence of being Christians as these boys give.’ On religious subjects
they have been most free in communicating both to their teacher and
myself by letter. I have thought that you might be interested in
extracts from some of them, and hence send you the following.
“I am going to write to you this day. Please help me to get my
father to become a Christian” (his father is an Indian doctor) “and
I think I will get Andrew and Henry” (the other Christian boys) “to
say a word for my father. I want you to read it to my father.”