But little has been done in these respects except to sow the seed, but
if the work shall continue another ten years I trust that more will be
accomplished. Since I have been here I have worked with the idea that in
time the Indians ought to furnish their own ministers and support them.
It will, however, naturally take more time to raise up a native ministry
than a native church, native Christian teachers than native Christian
scholars. These must come from our schools after long years of training.
Owing to a lack of early moral training among them,--the want of a
foundation,--the words of Paul on this subject have appeared to me to
have a striking significance, more so than among whites, although they
are true even among them: “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride
he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”
All people are tempted to be proud, but owing to this lack of
foundation, Indians are peculiarly so. A little knowledge puffeth up,
and, to use a common expression, they soon get the “big-head.” That
spoils them for the ministry. My first hope of this kind was that John
Palmer would turn his attention to the subject, but he had a family
before I knew him, and I never could induce him to look much in that
direction. In the spring of 1882 two young men who had been in school
from childhood took hold well. They began to talk with the Indians, to
assist me in holding meetings, and to take charge of them in my absence.
I felt that they were too young,--less than twenty-one,--and yet at
times I could see no other way to do; but I had reason to fear that both
felt proud of their position. During the next summer one of them, in
getting married, fell so low that we had to suspend him from the church
for almost a year, and the other for a time went slowly backward. Both
have come up again considerably, and the latter has done quite well for
the last year in holding lay-meetings. I pray “the Lord of the harvest,
that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”
As to the support of the ministry, I always felt a delicacy in speaking
of the subject, because I was the minister. For several years, as long
as very few of the older Indians were members of the church, and the
ones who were members were scholars without money, it was difficult to
say much. As soon as some of the school-boys were put to work as
apprentices, I broached the subject to them, talked about it, and gave
them something to read on it. While they were apprentices and employees
most of them gave fairly. The agent urged them to do so, but compelled
none, and a few refused entirely. But when they left the government
employ and the agent moved away, they stopped doing what they had never
liked to do.
The older Indians, when they did come into the church, were hardly
prepared for it. The Catholic set said that if the people joined them
they would have nothing to pay. One of the Catholics told me that the
only reason why I wanted to get him into the church was to obtain his
money. It had been revealed to them that it was wrong to sell God’s
truth. These arguments, somewhat similar to those used years ago by some
of the more ignorant people in the Southern and Western States, coupled
with the natural love of money, has made it very difficult to induce
even the members of the church to contribute for the support of their
pastor. One of them once almost found fault with me for taking the
money contributed at a collection by whites at Seabeck, where I often
preached, and he thought I ought not to do so.
The Indians at Jamestown have done somewhat differently. In their
region, when there has been preaching by the whites, generally a
collection is taken. Noticing this, of their own accord, in 1882 when I
went to them, they passed around the hat and took up a collection of
three dollars and forty-five cents, and they have sometimes done so
since.