It is very plain that Indians who can not read, and even some who can
read, but only a little, need something besides the Bible to help them
remember it. Were white people to hear the Bible explained once or twice
a week only, with no opportunity to read it, they would be very slow to
acquire its truths. It hence became very plain that some good Scripture
illustrations would be very valuable. I could not, however, afford to
give them to the Indians, nor did I think it best, as generally that
which costs nothing is good for nothing. But to live three thousand
miles from the publishing-houses and find what was wanted was difficult,
for it was necessary that they should be of good size, attractive, and
cheap. For eight years I failed to find what was a real success.
Fanciful Bible-texts are abundant, but they convey no Bible instruction
to older Indians. Small Bible pictures, three or four by four or six
inches are furnished by Nelson & Sons, and others, but they were too
small to hang over the walls of their houses and they did not care to
buy them. I often put them into my pocket, when visiting, and explained
them to the Indians, and so made them quite useful. The same company
furnished larger ones, about twelve by eighteen inches, which were good
pictures. The retail price was fifty cents. I obtained them by the
quantity at about thirty-seven cents and sold them for twenty-five, but
they were not very popular. It took too much money to make much of a
show. The Providence Lithograph Company publish large lithographs,
thirty by forty-four inches, for the International Sabbath-school
Lessons, which were somewhat useful. I obtained quite a number,
second-hand, at half-price, eight for a dollar, and often used them as
the text of my pulpit preaching, but when I was done with them I
generally had to give them away. They were colored and showy but too
indefinite to be attractive enough to the Indians to induce them to pay
even that small price for them.
At last I came across some large charts, on rollers, highly colored,
published by Haasis & Lubrecht, of New York. They were twenty-eight by
thirty-five inches, and I could sell them for twenty-five cents each,
and they were very popular. They went like hot cakes--were often wanted
faster than I could get them, although I procured from twenty to forty
and sometimes more at once. Protestant and Catholic Indians, Christians
and medicine-men, those off the reservation and on other reservations as
well as at Skokomish, were equally pleased with them, so that I sold
four hundred and fifty in twenty-one months. They were large, showy,
cheap, and good, care being used not to obtain some purely Catholic
pictures which they publish.
“The Story of the Bible,” “Story of the Gospel,” and “First Steps for
Little Feet in Gospel Paths,” also have proved very useful for those who
can read a little but can not understand all the hard words in the
Bible. Their numerous pictures are attractive, and the words are easy to
be understood.