CHAPTER XXI.

1871-1877.--The Wilder Sioux.--Gradual Openings.--Thomas

Lawrence.--Visit to the Land of the Teetons.--Fort Sully.--Hope

Station.--Mrs. General Stanley in the _Evangelist_.--Work by

Native Teachers.--Thomas Married to Nina Foster.--Nina's First

Visit to Sully.--Attending the Conference and American

Board.--Miss Collins and Miss Whipple.--Bogue Station.--The

Mission Surroundings.--Chapel Built.--Mission Work.--Church

Organized.--Sioux War of 1876.--Community

Excited.--Schools.--"Waiting for a Boat."--Miss Whipple Dies at

Chicago.--Mrs. Nina Riggs' Tribute.--The Conference of 1877 at

Sully.--Questions Discussed.--Grand Impressions.

We had been long thinking of and looking toward the wilder part of the

Sioux nation, living on and west of the Missouri River. More than

thirty years before this, in company with Mr. Alex. G. Huggins, I had

made a trip over from Lac-qui-parle to Fort Pierre. The object of that

visit was to inform ourselves in regard to the Teetons--their numbers

and condition, and whether we ought then to commence mission work

among them. And since the Santees were brought to the Missouri we had

made several preaching tours up the river, stopping awhile with the

Brules at Crow Creek, and with the Minnekanjoos, the Oohenonpa, the

Ogallala, and the Itazipcho of the Cheyenne and Standing Rock

agencies. The bringing of our Christianized people into proximity with

the wild part of the nation seemed to indicate God's purpose of

carrying the Gospel to them also.

The field was evidently now open, and waiting for the sower of the

precious seed of the Word. There was no _audible_ cry of "Come over

and help us," nor was there in the case of Paul with the Macedonian.

But there was the same unrest, the same agony, the same reaching out

after a knowledge of God, now as then. We listened to it, and

assuredly gathered that the Lord would have us work among the Teetons.

Thomas Lawrence was Mary's second boy. He could hardly be reconciled

with the idea that his mother should go away to the spirit land, while

he was down in Mississippi teaching the freedmen. Now he had been two

years in Chicago Theological Seminary, and was asking what he should

do when the other year was finished. The Prudential Committee of the

American Board were looking around for some one to send to the Upper

Missouri. Thomas had been born and brought up, in good part, in the

land of the Dakotas; but they deemed it only fair that he should now

with a man's eyes see the field, and with a man's heart better

understand the work before committing himself to it. And so, in his

summer vacation of 1871, they said to him, "Go with your father to the

land of the Teetons, and see whether you can find your life-work with

them."

We came to the land of the Teetons, and stopped for five or six weeks

at Fort Sully, which was in the neighborhood of Cheyenne agency. There

we found Chaplain G. D. Crocker, who had been much interested in our

work among the Dakotas when stationed at Fort Wadsworth. We found also

good and true Christian friends in Captain Irvine and his wife, and in

the noble Mrs. General Stanley, the wife of the commandant of the

post. In the mornings of our stay in the garrison, we often gathered

buffalo berries--mashtinpoota, _rabbit noses_, as the Indians called

them. During the day we talked with the Dakotas, and studied the

Teeton dialect, and also the Assinaboine and the Ree. In our judgment,

the time had fully come for us to commence evangelistic work in this

part of the nation. Our friends at Sully thought so, and the

prudential committee did not hesitate a moment. Indeed, they could not

wait for Thomas to finish his seminary course, but sent him off in

midwinter to Fort Sully. He was ordained by a council which met in

Beloit.

The Indians of the Cheyenne agency, a portion of them, were

distributed along down in the Missouri bottom in little villages and

clusters of houses. In a village of this kind, a little below the

fort, and on the opposite side of the river, T. L. Riggs erected his

first house. It was a hewed log cabin, with two rooms below, one of

which was a school-room. The garret was arranged for sleeping

apartments. This was called Hope Station, so named by Captain Irvine's

little daughter, who about this time came into the Christian hope.

Of this new enterprise, Mrs. Gen. D. S. Stanley sent a very pleasant

notice to the _New York Evangelist_. "Six years ago," she says, "my

lot was cast among the Sioux, or Dakota Indians, who inhabit the

region bordering on the Missouri River, 500 miles above Sioux City,

Iowa, and in the vicinity of Fort Sully, Dakota Territory. All this

time it has been a matter of surprise to me that no Christian

missionary was laboring among these heathens, while so many were sent

to foreign lands. In reply to a suggestion to this effect, made to the

American Board, it was stated that it is almost impossible to induce a

competent person to undertake so difficult and dangerous a task.

"Meanwhile God was preparing the way. A boy had grown up among the

Dakotas, speaking their language, understanding their customs, and

identifying himself with their best interests. He was at this time in

college preparing for the ministry, and last spring this young man,

Rev. T. L. Riggs, son of the veteran missionary and Dakota scholar of

that name, came to this place, and entered upon the work for which he

seemed to be so peculiarly fitted. Almost unassisted, except by a

brother, and some facilities for work afforded by the commandant of

Fort Sully, he has erected two log buildings, and already schools are

in operation on both sides of the river, attended by about sixty

Indians, of various ages. Two native teachers were employed during the

summer, and two are engaged for the winter. Mr. Riggs has surmounted

great difficulties, inseparable from such efforts in remote and

unsettled regions; but he is full of energy, and his heart is in the

work."

From the beginning, it has been the aim at this station to do the work

of education very much by means of native teachers. The first summer,

a young man from the Yankton agency, Toonwan-ojanjan by name, was

employed, and also Louis Mazawakinyanna, from Sisseton. The next

autumn, James Red Wing and his wife Martha, and Blue Feather

(Suntoto), were brought up from the Santees. Red Wing's wife taught

the women in letters and the family arts, while the men taught the

young men and children generally, and greatly aided in the religious

teachings of the Sabbath. Afterward, Dowanmane, another Santee man,

was employed in like manner. This was the commencement of educational

and Christian work in this Teeton field.

At another point, some few miles below Hope Station, on the same side

of the river, was another Dakota village, where Thomas immediately

commenced holding a preaching service, and has kept up a school. It is

one of his out stations, and called Chantier, from the name of the

creek and bottom. While the opportunities for education and the new

teaching were looked upon favorably, and gladly received by many,

there were not wanting those who were savagely opposed. At different

times, while Henry M. Riggs, who spent several years aiding in the

erection of buildings and other general work, was present with Thomas

at Hope Station, their house and tent were fired upon by Indians, and

residence there seemed hardly safe.

When he had thus started the work, leaving it to be cared for and

carried on by Henry M. Riggs and Edmund Cooley and the native

teachers, Thomas went down to the States to consummate a marriage

engagement with Cornelia Margaret Foster (known as Nina Foster),

daughter of Hon. John B. Foster of Bangor, Me. It was winter, and not

considered advisable for Mrs. Riggs to return with her husband to his

home among the Teetons. She made a visit with her sister, Mrs. C. H.

Howard, at Glencoe, in the vicinity of Chicago, and in the spring

month of May I accompanied her up the Missouri. We had a particularly

long voyage of eleven days, on the _Katie Koontz_, between the Santee

agency and Fort Sully; so long that we picked up Thomas on the way,

coming to meet us in his little skiff.

Thomas and Nina returned to Sully after our mission meeting at the

Yankton agency, and then, in September, went to the meeting of the

board at Minneapolis.

Sully was a far-off station. There were many reasons why a white

woman should not be there alone. Miss Lizzie Bishop's election to go

back with them, together with her beautiful life and early death, have

been detailed in a preceding chapter.

She had fallen out of the working ranks, but others were ready to step

to the front. In the previous spring, Secretary Treat had told me that

there were two young ladies in Iowa who were anxious to engage in

mission work. They preferred to go to the Indians, as they desired to

labor together. It was a David and Jonathan love that existed between

Miss Mary C. Collins and Miss J. Emmaretta Whipple. They were

immediately sent out by the Woman's Board of the Interior to labor at

Bogue Station.

This place, selected in 1873, had for various reasons become in 1874

the home station--thenceforward Hope was only an out-station. Bogue

Station is on Peoria bottom, about fifteen miles below Fort Sully, and

on the same side of the Missouri, called by the Indians

"Tee-tanka-ohe," meaning "The place of a large house," so called from

a house built years ago by an Indian. General Harney selected this

bottom as the place for an agency, or rather, perhaps, where a scheme

of civilization should be tried, and built upon it several log houses,

which became the dwellings of Yellow Hawk and his people. The bottom

has several advantages--considerable cottonwood timber, plenty of

grass for hay, and as good land for cultivation as there is in this

often "dry and thirsty land."[9]

[9] Now named _Oahe_.

The first winter Oyemaza, or James Red Wing, and his wife lived here

with Henry M. Riggs, and taught a school. The second winter Thomas and

Nina, with Miss Bishop, made it their abode. So that it was not quite

a new place to which Miss Collins and Miss Whipple came, and yet new

enough. The mission dwelling is made of logs--one series of logs

joined to another, so as to make four rooms below, one of which has

served as a school-room through the week and a chapel for the Sabbath.

Additions have been made in the rear. The school-room has for a long

time back overflowed on the Sabbath, and the women and children have

been packed into the room adjoining, which is the family room. Hence a

great and growing want of this station has been a chapel and larger

school-room. The name of Bogue was given to the station for Mrs. Mary

S. Bogue, a special friend of Thomas while he was in the seminary, who

has gone to her rest. It was at one time expected that Mr. Bogue would

furnish the means to erect a chapel; but the shrinkage in values and

financial losses made him a broken reed. And so the desired building

has been postponed from year to year. But a small contribution of

fourteen cents, made by little Bertie Howard, was the nucleus around

which larger contributions gathered, chiefly from Nina's native

Bangor. About $400 of special contributions were thus received, and

the prudential committee made a loan, which was afterward made a gift,

of $500 toward it. The building is going up--August, 1877--a neat and

substantial frame, the material of which was brought up from Yankton

by boat. It is forty by twenty feet, and will have a bell-tower in one

corner.

* * * * *

Let me now go back and take up the threads of the narrative which were

dropped two years ago. The two young ladies who desired to work

together in some Indian field found themselves here in Yellow Hawk's

village. They entered into the labors of those who had been here

longer. They grew into the work. The day schools in books and sewing,

together with the night school, employed all hands, during the winter

especially. A number have learned to read and write in their own

language. Besides the school carried on at the home station, the two

out stations have been occupied by native helpers. Edwin Phelps, from

the Sisseton agency, with his mother, Elizabeth Winyan, have been

valuable assistants for two winters past. Also for the winter of

1876-7, David Gray Cloud, one of the native pastors at the head of the

Coteau, did valuable service both in teaching and preaching. He was

sent to Standing Rock by the native missionary society, but, not being

able to get a footing there, he came down here to preach to these

Teetons salvation by Jesus Christ. In the spring, when he was leaving

for Sisseton, they begged him to stay, or at least to promise to come

back again.

The Word, during these years, has not been preached in vain. While in

the main it has been seed-sowing,--only seed-sowing--breaking up the

wild prairie-land of these wild Dakota hearts, and planting a seed

here and there, which grows, producing some good fruit, but in most

cases not yet the best fruit of a pure and holy life,--still, in the

summer of 1876, one young man, the first fruits among the Teetons,

_David Lee_ (Upijate) by name, came out as a disciple of Jesus. This

was the signal for the organization of a church at this station, which

was effected in August. Another native convert, the brother of the

first, was added in the autumn following; and still more a year or so

afterward.

For two winters past, several boys and young men, who have made a good

commencement in education in these schools, have been sent down to

enjoy the advantages of A. L. Riggs' High School at Santee. The Sioux

war of the summer of 1876 produced a great excitement at all the

agencies on the Upper Missouri. The Indians in these villages were

more or less intimately connected with the hostiles. Many of those

accustomed to receive rations here were during the summer out on the

plains. Some of them were in the Custer fight. They say that Sitting

Bull's camp was not large--only about two hundred lodges. The victory

they gained was not, as the whites claimed, owing to the overwhelming

number of the Dakotas, but to the exhausted condition of Custer's men

and horses, and to their adventuring themselves into a gorge where

they could easily be cut off.

When the autumn came, the victories of the Sioux had been turned into

a general defeat. Many of them, as they claim, had been opposed to the

war all along. The attacks, they say, were all made by the white

soldiers. _They_--these Dakota men--were anxious to have peace, and

used all their influence to abate the war spirit among the more

excited young men. This made it possible for the military to carry out

the order to _dismount_ and _disarm_ the Sioux. But in doing this all

were treated alike as foes. Such men as _Long Mandan_ complain

bitterly of this injustice. From him and his connections the military

took sixty-two horses. He cannot see the righteousness of it.

As a matter of course, this excited state of the community was

unfavorable, in some respects, to missionary work during the winter.

The military control attempted to interfere with the sending away of

Teeton young men to the Santee school. But on the whole no year of

work has proved more profitable. In all the schools, Thomas reported

about two hundred and forty scholars. They were necessarily irregular

in attendance, as they were frequently ordered up to the agency to be

counted. Still, the willing hearts and hands had work to do all the

time. And so the spring of 1877 came, when the women folks of Bogue

Station had all planned to have a little rest. Mrs. Nina Riggs was to

go as far as Chicago to meet her father and mother from Bangor. Miss

Collins and Miss Whipple were going to visit their friends in Iowa and

Wisconsin. And so they all prepared for the journey and _waited for a

boat_. By some mischance boats slid by them. They put their tent on

the riverbank and waited. So a whole month had passed, when, at last,

their patient waiting was rewarded, and they passed down the Missouri

River and on to Chicago.

The ladies of the Woman's Board of the Interior had arranged to have

them present and take an active part in several public meetings in and

around Chicago. This was unwise for the toilers among the Dakotas. The

excitement of waiting and travel--the summer season--the strain on the

nervous system incident to speaking in public, to those unaccustomed

to it--all these were unfavorable to the rest they needed. We must not

quarrel with the Lord's plan, but we may object to the human unwisdom.

So it was; before Miss Whipple had visited her friends she was

stricken down with fever. Loving hearts and willing hands could not

stay its progress. It is said, and we do not doubt it, that all was

done for her recovery that kind and anxious friends could do. Miss

Collins, her special friend, did not leave her. Delirium came on, and

she was _waiting for the boat_. It was not now a Missouri steamer, but

the boat that angels bring across from the Land of Life. She saw it

coming. "The boat has come and I must step in," she said. And so she

did, and passed over to the farther shore of the river.

The Teetons say, "Two young women went away, and one of them is not

coming back. They say she has gone to the land of spirits. It has been

so before. Miss Bishop went away, and we did not see her again. And

now we shall not see Miss Whipple any more." So they mourn with us.

But, while the workers fall, their work will not fail. It is the work

for which Christ came from the bosom of the Father; and, as he lives

now, so he "shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be

satisfied."

Dear Miss Whipple's death came upon us like a thunder-clap. We are

dumb, because the Lord has done it. Nevertheless, it has made our

hearts very sad and interfered with our plans of work. But we can say,

"Not in _our_ way, but in _Thy_ way, shall the work be done." A

fitting tribute from Mrs. Nina Riggs will be found very interesting.

* * * * *

"Miss J. E. Whipple died of gastric fever at Chicago, August 11, aged

24. For nearly two years she had been connected with the Dakota

Mission among the Teeton Indians. And she left her work there last

spring, in order to take a short vacation and visit among her friends.

On her way from her sister's home in Knoxville, Ill., to the home of

her father at Badger, Wis., she was attacked by the disease which

proved fatal. Through all her sickness to the end, she was tenderly

and lovingly cared for by Miss Mary Collins, her intimate friend and

companion in missionary labor. In the summer of 1875, Miss Whipple

gave herself to the cause of missions, and entered upon her work in

the autumn of that same year. She had little idea of what she should

be called to do, but self-consecration was the beginning of all, and

so, whatever work was given her to do, she took it up cheerfully and

earnestly, yielding time and strength and zeal to it. Though it seemed

small, she did not scorn it; though repugnant, she did not shirk it;

though hard, she bravely bore it. Her merry smile, her thoughtful

mind, her quick response, the work of her strong, shapely hands, all

blessed our mission home. She came a stranger to us, but when she left

us in the spring, only for a summer's vacation as we thought, she was

our true and well beloved friend.

"They tell me she is dead! When the word reached us, already was the

dear form laid away by loving hands to its last rest.

"Dead! The house is full of her presence, the work of her hands is

about us, the echo of her voice is in our morning and vesper hymns,

the women and children whom she taught to sew and knit, and the men

whom she taught to read and write, gather about the doorway. Even now

beneath the workman's hammer is rising the chapel, for which she hoped

and prayed and labored.

"Dead? No! The power of her strong young life is still making itself

felt, though the bodily presence is removed from us, nor can that

power cease so long as the work she loved is a living work.

"'The children all about are sad,' said an Indian woman. 'I too am

sorrowful. I wanted to see her again.' The little Theodore, whom she

had loved and tended, folded his hands and prayed, 'Bless Miss Emmie

up in heaven,--she was sick and died and went to heaven,--and bring

her back some time.' Sweet, childish prayer that would fain reach out

with benediction to her who is beyond the reach of our blessing,

eternally blest.

"As she passed away from the fond, enfolding arms that would have

detained her, she breathed a message for us all. Listen! Do you not

hear her speaking? 'Work for the missions, work for the missions.

Christ died for the missions.'

"On the wall of her room still hangs the Scripture roll as it was

left. And this is the word of comfort it bears:--

"'I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.'

"'His servants shall serve Him and they shall see His face.'"

THE DAKOTA CONFERENCE.

The sixth annual meeting of the Conference of churches connected with

the Dakota Mission took place at T. L. Riggs' station on Peoria

bottom, near Fort Sully, commencing on Thursday, September 13, 1877,

and closing on Sabbath, the 16th.

The very neat new chapel, which had been in building only a few weeks,

was pushed forward so that it made a very convenient and comfortable

place of meeting. The Sabbath immediately preceding, it was occupied

for religious service. It was very gratifying to see the house filled

by the Indians living here. In the general interest manifested in

religious instructions by the people of these villages, there is very

much to encourage us. Old men and women, young men and maidens, flock

to the new chapel, and express great gratification that it has been

erected for their benefit.

On Wednesday, the 12th of the month, the delegates began to come in.

The first to arrive were from the homestead settlement of Flandreau

on the Big Sioux. They had come 260 miles and traveled ten days. Then

came the delegation of more than twenty from the Sisseton reservation,

near Fort Wadsworth. And in the evening came the largest company from

the Yankton and Santee agencies. In all there were over sixty present,

about forty-five of whom were members of the Conference, and all had

traveled more than 200 miles. The last to arrive were John P.

Williamson and A. L. Riggs, who, being disappointed in getting a

steamboat, had to come all the way in the stage.

Our meeting was opened with a sermon by the youngest of our Dakota

pastors, Rev. John Eastman of Flandreau. This was followed by

greetings from T. L. Riggs and Mr. Yellow Hawk and Mr. Spotted Bear.

Responses by S. R. Riggs, and pastors Artemas, John Renville, Daniel

Renville, Solomon, David, Louis, and Joseph Blacksmith, followed by A.

L. Riggs and John P. Williamson, who had just arrived. The meeting was

very enjoyable and was followed by the organization. T. L. Riggs and

David Gray Cloud were the English and Dakota secretaries, the only

officers of the Conference. The roll contained fifty names, a number

less than we have had present in years past, but quite large,

considering the distance of the place from our churches, and the

pressure of home work.

Friday, after a morning prayer meeting, at which the house appeared to

be full, the Conference was opened with so large a gathering that it

was found necessary to pack the house, when about two hundred were

crowded in. As yet only a few of these Teetons have changed their

dress, but they sit for three hours, and listen very attentively to

discussions on the questions of "How to Study the Bible," and "Who

Shall be Received to Church Membership?" To the Teetons it was all

new, but the native pastors endeavored to put their thoughts into such

forms as to reach their understandings. Chaplain G. D. Crocker of

Sully was present with his family, and added to the interest. On

Saturday, Dr. Cravens, agent at Cheyenne, with his wife, made us a

visit.

The homestead question occupied us for a whole afternoon, and was one

which attracted the most attention, as these Teetons even are greatly

exercised to know how they shall secure a permanent habitation. Daniel

Renville, Joseph Blacksmith, and Esau Iron Frenchman, all

homesteaders, made eloquent appeals in favor of Indians becoming white

men. But their stories of hard times showed that it had been no

child's-play with them.

The report of the executive committee of the native missionary society

was read by A. L. Riggs, and David Gray Cloud gave an interesting

account of his last winter's work on the Missouri. Speeches were made

by John B. Renville, Joseph Blacksmith, S. R. Riggs, and John P.

Williamson. By vote of the Conference the same committee was

re-elected for another year--A. L. Riggs, Joseph Blacksmith, and John

B. Renville. The money now in the treasury is about $160, besides

certain articles contributed and not yet sold. The committee expect to

engage the services of one of the pastors for the coming winter.

Another question discussed was "Household Duties"; when the divine

constitution of the family was made to bear against polygamy. This

subject bore heavily upon the principal men of these villages, who

were present and heard it all. It will doubtless cause some searchings

of heart, which we hope will result in changed lives.

On Saturday afternoon a woman's meeting was held, which was peculiarly

interesting in consequence of Miss Whipple's unexpected translation.

She has worked herself very much into the hearts of these Teeton

women.

Our whole meeting was closed by the services of the Sabbath. John P.

Williamson preached an impressive sermon in Dakota; John Eastman led

in the service of song at the organ; two of the native pastors

administered the Supper of our Lord; Gray-haired Bear and Estelle

Duprey were united in marriage; C. H. Howard of _The Advance_, made a

good talk to the Dakotas on Christian work through the Holy Spirit's

help, and led in an English Bible reading; and finally, John B.

Renville gave us a wonderful series of pictures on the "Glory of

Heaven"--what man's eye hath not seen--man's ear hath not heard--and

man's heart hath not conceived. We shall long remember the meeting at

Peoria bottom, and we shall expect to see results in the progress of

truth in the minds and hearts of these Teetons.

The Forty Years are completed. In the meantime, many workers have

fallen out of the ranks, but the work has gone on. It has been

marvelous in our eyes. At the beginning, we were surrounded by the

whole Sioux nation, in their ignorance and barbarism. At the close we

are surrounded by churches with native pastors. Quite a section of the

Sioux nation has become, in the main, civilized and Christianized. The

entire Bible has been translated into the language of the Dakotas. The

work of education has been rapidly progressing. The Episcopalians,

entering the field many years after we did, have nevertheless, with

more men and more means at their command, gone beyond us in the

occupation of the wilder portions. Their work has enlarged into the

bishopric of Niobrara, which is admirably filled by Bishop Hare. Thus

God has been showing us, by his providence and his grace, that the red

men too may come into the Kingdom.

APPENDIX.

_MONOGRAPHS._

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS, REV. GIDEON H. POND, SOLOMON, DR. T. S.

WILLIAMSON, THE FAMILY REUNION, AND OTHERS.

APPENDIX.

MONOGRAPHS.

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS.

CORNELIA MARGARET, daughter of Hon. John B. Foster and Catharine McGaw

Foster, was born in Bangor, Me., March 19, 1848. Very soon after she

left us, on August 5, 1878, there appeared appreciative testimonials

of her life and character in the _Advance_, in the _Iapi Oaye_, and in

_Life and Light_. In preparing this monograph, the writer will make

free use of all these materials.

Rev. R. B. Howard, while in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, knew

her as Nina Foster, "a golden-haired, fair-cheeked, gracefully formed

little Sabbath-school scholar of ten, at the Central Church. Her

quick, laughing eye, her sensitive face reflecting every changing

thought, her constant companionship of an only sister a little taller,

her ready answers to all Sabbath-school questions, her intelligent

appreciation of the sermons, and her sunshiny presence at school and

at home, were among the impressions which her childhood gave.

"She lacked no means of cultivating the rare powers of mind which she

early developed. Many things she seemed to learn intuitively. Her

scholarship was bright, quick, accurate. Literature was her delight.

Her mother's father, Judge McGaw, whose white locks and venerable

presence then honored Bangor, was an interested and judicious guide in

the home reading.

"In social life few shone more brilliantly, or were more admired and

sought after. In those days, the beauty of person of the young lady

was of a rare and noticeable type. Her conversational powers were

fascinating. She had by nature genuine histrionic talent, and in

conversation, reading, or reciting seemed to be completely the person

she sought to represent. On one occasion, by a slight change of dress,

voice, and manner, she appeared as an aged widow, pleading with a high

officer of the government at Washington, to help her find her son,

lost in the troublous times of the war."

The "only sister, a little taller," Mrs. Katie Foster Howard, thus

testifies of Nina's early life:--

"When a little child, from eight to twelve years old, she and some of

her companions formed 'a praying circle,' and had a little room in one

of their homes which they called The House of Prayer. They met often

in this room, and delighted to decorate it after their childish

fashion.

"Another favorite occupation was the teaching of some poor children

whom she and one or two friends brought out of their dreary homes to

the church vestibule, and there taught to sew and read.

"When eleven years old she was examined by the pastor and church

officers for admission to the church; they asked her how long she had

loved Jesus, and she answered,'Oh, a great many years.'"

Mrs. Howard speaks of her sister as "the little girl in the Eastern

home, whose _spirituelle_ face, with its halo of golden hair, seemed

so much more of heaven than of earth as to cause the frequent, anxious

comment that this world could not long detain her. An active, happy

child among her playmates, her thoughts were often upon heavenly

things, and her desire was to turn theirs thitherward, yet without

anything morbid or unchildlike in her ways.

"As she grew to womanhood, she was the delight of the home which so

tenderly shielded her from every rude blast, and of a large circle of

attached friends. She possessed those charms of person and manners and

qualities of mind which won admiration, and peculiarly fitted her to

enjoy and adorn society. So when the time came for her to change this

for a secluded life, many regretted that the fine gold should be sent

where baser metal, as they thought, would do as well; that the noble

woman, so eminently fitted for usefulness in circles of refinement,

should spend her life among the degraded and unappreciative savages.

But the event has proved that only such a nature, abounding in

resources, could be the animating spirit of a model home in the

wilderness; which should be an object-lesson of Christian culture not

only to the Indian but to the army people, who were her only white

neighbors, and who for her sake could look with interest on a work too

often an object of contempt. And thus the reflex influence upon those

who missed her from their number, or met her as she journeyed to her

field of labor, has been in proportion to the grace of her refinement

and the depth and breadth of her character. God, who spared not his

own Son, still gives his choicest ones to the salvation of men."

While on a visit to Chicago, in the family of her sister, she first

became acquainted with Thomas L. Riggs, then a student in the

theological seminary. Their mutual love soon compelled her to consider

what it would be to share in his life-work. She recognized its

hardships and deprivations as could hardly have been expected in one

so inexperienced in life's trials. She afterward often playfully said

she was "not a missionary, only a missionary's wife." But it was a

double consecration, joyous and entire, to the life of wife and

missionary.

Thomas and Nina were married at her home in Bangor, December 26, 1872.

It is said, "Christian people, and even Christian ministers, were

inclined to say, 'Why this waste?'" Some did say it. Some spoke in

bitter and almost angry condemnation of her course. That this

beautiful and accomplished girl, eminently fitted to adorn any

society, should devote herself to a missionary life, occasioned much

comment in the social circle in which she had been prominent. What

could she do for the coarse, degraded Indian women, that might not be

better done by a less refined, sensitive, and elevated nature? Why

shut up her beauty and talents in the log cabin of an Indian

missionary? It was a shock to some who had preached self-sacrifice,

and a painful surprise to many who had been praying the Lord of the

harvest to send laborers. But none of these things moved her. There

has seldom been a sweeter and more lovely bride. The parents too made

the consecration, while they wrestled in spirit. The father writes: "I

gave her up when she left us on that winter's night. It was a hard

struggle, but I think I gave her unconditionally to God, to whom she

so cheerfully gave herself."

At this season of the year, it was not possible for Nina to accompany

her husband to Fort Sully, and so he left her at Gen. C. H. Howard's,

near Chicago, to come on in the early spring. This was my first

opportunity of becoming acquainted with "Mitakosh Washta," as I soon

learned to call her. General Howard accompanied her to Sioux City, and

then I became her escort by railroad and stage to Santee agency, and

thence by steamboat to Sully. The boat was nearly two weeks on the

way, and we took on two companies of United States troops at Fort

Randall. The officers soon manifested a marked admiration for the

beauty and culture of the Bangor lady; so that afterward, in alluding

to this little episode, I used playfully to say to Nina that I was

rejoiced when Thomas, coming down the Missouri in his skiff, met us

and took charge of his bride.

We had but a few weeks to spend at Fort Sully, until we should start

down to the meeting of our annual Conference, which was held in June

that year, at the Yankton agency. But those weeks were full of

pleasure to Nina. Everything was new and strange. She was devoid of

fear when she sat in the iron skiff, and crossed the Big Muddy with

her husband at the helm. The time came to go down. It was nearly noon

on Monday when we were ready to start; but, by hard driving, we were

able to reach Rev. John P. Williamson's--more than 200 miles--by the

afternoon of Thursday. Secretary S. J. Humphrey, from Chicago, was

there, and afterward wrote that for T. L. Riggs and the father, who

were accustomed to hard traveling and sleeping on the ground, it was

nothing very strange; but for one reared as Nina had been, it was

simply wonderful.

This was the first meeting of Martha Riggs Morris with her new sister.

When the latter had gone beyond our ken, Martha wrote an appreciative

article for the _Word Carrier_: "Let me give something," she wrote,

"of the little glimpses I have had of her brave, cheery life. I may

first go back to the time when we first heard of Nina Foster--who

thought enough of T. L. Riggs and the Indian work to help him in it.

That was in the spring-time. A few months later, Thomas had a hard

ride across from Fort Sully to Sisseton on horseback, accompanied by a

soldier for guard and an Indian for guide. He came to attend the

annual Conference of the Dakota churches, and he showed us a picture

of the young lady herself. A beautiful face, we all thought it was.

And from what we heard of Nina Foster, we were all prepared to take

her into our hearts, as we did when we saw her afterward.

"It was in June of the year following that I had my first glimpse of

her. I had myself taken a tedious journey of some three hundred miles,

and the years as well as the journey had worn upon me. So I felt some

trepidation about meeting the blooming bride. But, on seeing her, that

soon vanished, and I had nothing left but admiration for the beautiful

sister. She told so merrily how they had strapped her in, to keep her

from falling out of the wagon, and other incidents of her unaccustomed

journey. There was an evident determination to make the best of every

experience."

A little while after this Mrs. Morris was called to lay away her

blue-eyed boy out of sight. Then Nina's letter was very comforting. "I

have wept," she says, "with you for the dear little baby form laid

away from your arms to its last sleep; and I think of your words,

'Nothing to do any more.' Ah! my dear sister, He will not so leave you

comfortless. He who forgot not, in the last hours of his earthly life,

to give to the aching mother-heart a new care and love, will not

forget, I think, to bestow on your emptied hands some new duty which

shall grow to be a joy."

At the meeting of the American Board at Minneapolis in the autumn of

1873, Mrs. Nina Riggs was present, and addressed the ladies of the

Woman's Board, asking for a young lady companion in her far-off field.

To this call Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield responded, and gave the

remainder of her bright, true life to help on the work at Fort Sully.

Nina visited her sister in Chicago, and charmed them all by reciting

her strange experiences of the summer. "Her buoyant spirits and

faculty for seeing the droll side of everything helped to make the

sketch a bright one. Her sense of humor and keen wit has lightened

many a load for herself and others; the more forlorn and hopeless the

situation, the more elastic her spirits. How often have those of her

own household, wearied with severe labor and weighed down with care,

been compelled to laugh, almost against their will, by her

irresistible drollery, and thus the current of thought was turned and

the burden half thrown aside."

In the summer of 1874 baby Theodore was born, and none from Fort Sully

came to our annual meeting. On my way from a visit to Fort Berthold,

down the Missouri River, I stopped off for a few days. They were then

occupying Hope Station, across the river from the fort. Both Miss

Bishop and Mrs. Nina Riggs I found very enthusiastic over their work

for the Teeton women.

When another year had been completed, Lizzie Bishop had gone home to

die, and Nina Riggs made a visit to her friends in the East. The Board

met in Chicago that autumn, and Mrs. Riggs again addressed the ladies.

"Two years ago," she said, "at a meeting in Minneapolis, I made a

request which was promptly answered. I asked for a young lady to go

back with me to the mission work. I find her name is not on the rolls.

But if ever a brave life should be recorded, and the name of an

earnest woman be loved and remembered by all, it is that of Miss

Lizzie Bishop of Northfield, Minn. We had hoped that she might return,

but the Lord has not seen fit to allow that. He calls her to himself

soon. For the past two years I have been at different stations. I was

at Hope Station, on the west side of the Missouri. Now I am at Bogue

Station, fifteen miles below Fort Sully, on the east side. Since I

have been there, I have met a great many women. At first they all

seemed to me very degraded; but I have come not only to feel

interested in many of them, but to love some of them with a very deep

love." So spake Nina; and when she sat down, a telegram was read that

the good and brave Lizzie Bishop had already entered in through the

gates of pearl, into "Jerusalem the golden."

Two others, Miss Mary C. Collins and Miss Emmaretta Whipple, were

ready to start back with Mrs. Riggs. So the vacant place was more than

filled, and they all girded themselves for a hard winter's work.

A little before this time, Nina sent to the _Word Carrier_ a short bit

of poetry, which seems to embody her own wrestling with doubt in

others. The last stanza reads:--

"With daring heart, I too have tried

To know the height and depth of God above;

And can I wonder that I too walked blind,

And felt stern Justice in the place of Love?

Above the child, the sun shines on;

Above me too One reigns I cannot see;

Yet all around I feel both warmth and power;

_If God is not_, whence can _their_ coming be?"

In September, 1876, the great gathering of the Dakota mission was held

in the new Ascension church, on the Sisseton reservation. Mrs. Morris

writes: "We looked out eagerly for the travelers from Fort Sully way.

We hoped they would come a few days beforehand, so that we might have

more of their companionship. But they did not come. And as we had to

be on hand in the Ascension neighborhood, ten miles away, to entertain

the missionaries that might come, we shut up our house, and went on

without the Fort Sully friends. It was Friday noon when they arrived,

and received a glad welcome from all."

Thomas and Nina and their little lad Theodore, now two years old, who

amused every one with his quaint sayings, together with Miss Collins

and Miss Whipple, with all their personal and camping baggage, had

been packed for eight days into a small two-horse buggy. The journey

of 250 miles, the way they traveled, over a country uninhabited, was

not without its romance. "Not the least of the enjoyment of this

'feast of days,' were the bits of talk sandwiched in here and there

between meetings, and caring for the children and providing for the

guests. As we baked the bread and watched over the two cousins,

Theodore and Mary Theodora, so nearly of an age, we had many a

pleasant chat--Nina and I. She gave me an insight into their happy

home-life, and I longed to know more. She told, too, of her special

work in visiting the homes of the Teetons, and prescribing for the

sick. At the special meeting held for the women, Nina made a few

remarks, winning all hearts by her grace of manners, as well as by her

lovely face. Now that she is gone, the Dakota women speak of her as

'the beautiful woman who spoke so well.'"

"To all who come I wish my home to seem a pleasant home," is a remark

which Miss Collins accredits to Nina. So indeed we found it in the

months of August and September of 1877. The dear Miss Whipple had just

stepped into the boat at Chicago which carried her to the farther

shore. Miss Collins was mourning over her departed comrade while

making out the visit to her friends. By appointment I met on the way,

Gen. Charles H. Howard of the _Advance_, who, with his family, was

bound for Fort Sully. We were prospered in our journey up the

Missouri, and gladly welcomed into the mission home on Peoria bottom.

The two sisters met and passed some happy weeks in the home of the

younger one. Mrs. Howard thus describes that home in those August

days: "Its treeless waste lay under a scorching sun. Beneath a bluff

which overlooks the river lowlands, nestled a solitary green enclosure

around a long, low dwelling, whose aspect was of comfort and of home.

The sunshine which withered the surrounding country was not the gentle

power under which had sprung up this oasis in the desert. The light

within the house, whose sweet radiance beautified the humble dwelling,

and shone forth upon the wilderness around, was the fair soul, whose

heaven-reflected glory touched all who came within its ray."

To the same effect is Miss Collins' testimony: "I think no one ever

entered her home without feeling that the very house was purified by

her presence. I remember well just how she studied our different

tastes. She knew every member of the family thoroughly; and our

happiness was consulted in all things." So we all thought. Nina

presided in her own home, albeit that home was in Dakota land, with a

queenly grace.

About the middle of that September our annual Conference met in their

new and not yet finished chapel, on Peoria bottom. Miss Collins did

not get back until the close of the meeting. Besides her guests, Mrs.

Nina Riggs had a good deal of company from Fort Sully and the agency.

But it was all entertained with the same quiet dignity. Of this visit

to her sister, Mrs. Howard wrote afterward: "I do not know how to be

grateful enough that we spent last summer (1877) together; it is a

season of blessed memory."

To this I add: I too have one last picture of Nina in my memory. I was

to return to Sisseton with the Indians who had come over to our annual

Conference. They went up on Monday to Cheyenne agency to get rations

for the journey. On Tuesday afternoon Thomas arranged to take me out

fifteen miles to meet them. Thinking they would go out and return that

evening a party was made up. The two sisters, Mrs. Howard and Nina,

and little Theodore and Thomas and myself in a buggy, and Gen. C. H.

Howard and "Mack" on ponies, we had a pleasant ride out. But it was

too late for them to return. The Dakota friends gave us of their fresh

meat, and with the provisions Nina had bountifully supplied for my

journey, we all made a good supper and breakfast, and had an abundance

left. The next morning we separated. That was my last sight of Nina.

In midsummer of 1878, the time for her departure came. She seemed to

have a premonition of its coming. Miss Collins writes: "The last

summer of her precious life seemed a very fitting one for the last.

She labored earnestly for the conversion of her boy, and said: 'If I

should die and leave my boy, I should feel so much better satisfied to

go if he had that stronghold.'"

In the _Word Carrier_ for September appeared this notice: "Our beloved

Nina Foster Riggs, wife of Rev. T. L. Riggs of Bogue Station, near

Fort Sully, has heard the Master's call, and gone up higher. She was

taken away in child-birth, on the 5th of August. Hers was a beautiful

life, blossoming out into what we supposed would be a grand fruitage

of blessing to the Dakotas. It is cut off suddenly! 'Even so, Father,

for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' _We are dumb, because thou didst

it!_"

Two days after her death, Thomas wrote: "Dear Father--Mitakosh Washta

has been taken from us. My good Nina has gone. She was taken sick

Saturday night. Before the light of the Sabbath, violent convulsions

had set in. We got the post surgeon and Mrs. Crocker here as soon as

possible; but, though every effort was made, the spasms could not be

prevented, and our dear one sank gradually out of reach. Early Monday

morning, after child-birth, the mother seemed to brighten a bit; but

soon our gladness was turned to sadness, for she did not rally. God

took her. She was his. We buried the body--the beautiful house of the

more beautiful spirit--in the yard near her window, yesterday. May God

help us."

Only a few days before, a kind Providence had guided Arther H. Day, a

cousin of Nina's, from his work in the office of the _Advance_, in

Chicago, and Robert B. Riggs from his teaching in Beloit College, up

to Peoria bottom, for a little rest. And so they were there to help

and give sympathy. Of this event Mr. Day wrote: "Rarely is it the lot

of one so blessed with loving relatives and friends to pass away

surrounded by so few to sympathize, and to be buried with so few to

weep. Three relatives and nine other white friends stood alone by her

grave, and the many hundreds in the far East knew not of the scene. I

say _white_ friends, because I would not ignore the presence of those

many dusky faces which looked on in sorrow, because _their friend_ was

dead.

"About noon on Tuesday, August 6, the funeral service was conducted by

Chaplain Crocker. The same hymn was sung that, by Nina's own choice,

had been sung at her wedding:--

"'Guide me, O thou great Jehovah.'

One room of the house was filled with Indians, and the service was

partly in the native language. Her grave was made near the window of

her room, where she so often had beheld the sunset; and as kindly

hands laid her body there, surrounded by beautiful flowers, the

chaplain said: 'Never was more precious dust laid in Dakota

soil--never more hopeful seed planted for a spiritual harvest among

the Dakota people.'"

This beautiful summing-up of her character appeared as an editorial in

the _Advance_, by Rev. Simeon Gilbert:--

"Here was a young woman of extraordinary beauty of person, of

still more noticeable symmetry and completeness of mental

endowment, sweetness and nobility of disposition, brightness and

elasticity of temperament; quickly, keenly sympathetic with

others' joys and sorrows--but who had never known a grief of her

own; converted in infancy, reared in one of the happiest of

earnest Christian homes, and favored with as fine social and

educational advantages as the country affords; with too much

sense to be affected by mere 'romance,' yet deeply alive to all

the poetry alike in literature and in real life; and withal,

from early childhood, with a spiritual imagination exquisitely

alive to the realness and the nearness of unseen things, and the

all-controlling sweep of the motives springing

therefrom;--rarely does one meet a young person better fitted at

once to enjoy and to adorn what is best in American Christian

homes. At the age of twenty-four she marries a young man just

out of the seminary, and goes forth with him beyond the

frontiers of civilization, into the very heart of savage Indian

tribes. What a sacrifice; what a venture; what certain-coming

solicitudes, perils, cares, deprivations, hardships, loneliness,

and mountainous discouragements! And there for the short period

of less than five years she lives, when suddenly the young

missionary is left alone, longing for the 'touch of a vanished

hand and the sound of a voice that is still.'

"Now, a case like this must set one to studying over again

what, after all, is the true philosophy of life, and what, on

the whole, is the wisest economy of personal forces in the

church's work of Christianizing the world. As helping to a

right answer, let us note a few facts:--

"1. It costs to save a lost world; and nothing is wasted that

serves well that end. God himself has given for this purpose

the choicest, the highest, and the best which it was possible

for even him to give.

"2. Heathen people, even savages, as we call them, are not

insensible to the unique fascination, and power to subdue and

inspire, which belong to what is really most beautiful in

aspect, manner, mind, and character. Often it is to them as if

they had seen a vision, or dreamed a startling dream of

possibilities of which they had known nothing, and could have

known nothing, until they _saw_ it, and the sight awakened into

being and action the diviner elements of their own hidden

nature. The Word of God is one form of revelation, but the work

of God in a peculiarly complete and lovely character is another

revelation, and one that unmistakably interprets itself. There

is as much need of the one as there is of the other. The light

of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ

must, in most cases at least, first be seen reflected 'in the

face' of some of his disciples. The more dense the darkness,

the more intense must be the shining of the love and the beauty

of the truth which are to enlighten, captivate, lead forth, and

refine. Among all the teepees and huts of that Indian

reservation, as also throughout the barracks and quarters of

the military post at Fort Sully, Mrs. Riggs was known, and the

potent charm of her personal influence and home-life was deeply

felt. It is largely due to such persons that the cause of

missions, even among the most degraded, commands the respect,

if not the veneration, of those who otherwise might have

looked on derisively.

"3. Nor, again, are the lives of such persons wasted as regards

their influence upon those who knew them, or shall come to know

of them; at home. 'How far that little candle throws its beams;

so shines a good example'; and in instances like these it

shines more effectively than, perhaps, in any other

circumstances would have been possible. If one were to mention

a score of American women who have exerted most influence in

determining the best characteristics of American women, half of

them, we suspect, would be names of the women who, leaving home

and country, went far forth seeking to multiply similar homes

in other countries.

"4. Nor, again, is the strangely beautiful life wasted because

cut short so early in its course. The ointment most precious

was never more so than when its box was broken and the odor of

it filled all the house. This that this young missionary has

done, animated by the love of the Master and a sacred passion

for lifting up the lowly, will be spoken of as a memorial of

her in all the churches; and in not a few homes, of the rich as

of the poor, will be felt the sweet constraint of her

beautiful, joyous, consecrated life. She was not alone; there

are many more like her; and, best of all, there are to be

vastly more yet, who will not be deaf to 'the high calling.'

The Master has need of them. The way, on the whole, is

infinitely attractive. Thanks for the life of this woman who

did so much, from first to last, to make it appear so!

"And thanks too for such a death, which, coming in the sweetest

and completest blooming of life's beauty, when not a fault had

stayed to mar it, and no wasting had ever touched it--an ending

which transfigures all that came before it, and which now, in

the mingling of retrospect and prospect, helps those who knew

her to a deeply surprised sense of the fact that,

'To Death it is given,

To see how this world is embosomed in heaven.'"

To us, who are blind and cannot see afar off, it is impossible to

perceive, and difficult to believe, that the taking away in the vigor

of womanhood of one who was showing such a capacity and adaptability

for the work of elevating the Teetons can be made to subserve the

furtherance of the cause of Christ. But we must believe that God, who

sees the end from the beginning, and who makes no mistakes, will bring

out of this sore bereavement a harvest of joy; and that that grave

under the window of the mission house in Peoria bottom will be a

testimony to the love of Jesus and the power of his Gospel, that will

thrill and uplift many hearts from Bangor to Fort Sully. It was a

beautiful life of faith and service; and it has only gone to be

perfected in the shadow of the Tree of Life.

S. R. R.

REV. GIDEON H. POND.

A SUCCESSFUL LIFE.

Born and brought up in Litchfield county, in a town adjoining

Washington, Connecticut, Rev. George Bushnell visited that hill

country in his youth, and was deeply impressed with the manifest and

pervading religious element in the community. Taken there by a special

providence, more than a quarter of a century ago, and enjoying the

privilege of a visit in some of the families, it seemed to me that it

had been a good place to raise men. This was on the line of the

impression made upon me years before that. When I first met, in the

land of the Dakotas, the brothers Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, they

were both over six feet high, and "seemed the children of a king."

In this hill town of Washington, on the 30th of June, 1810, Gideon

Hollister, the younger of the two brothers, was born. His parents were

Elnathan Judson and Sarah Hollister Pond. Gideon was the fifth child,

and so was called by the Dakotas _Hakay_. Of his childhood and youth

almost nothing is known to the writer. He had the advantage of a New

England common-school education; perhaps nothing more. As he grew very

rapidly and came to the size and strength of man early, he made a full

hand in the harvest field at the age of sixteen. To this ambition to

be counted a man and do a man's work when as yet he should have been

a boy, he in after life ascribed some of his infirmities. This

ambition continued with him through life, and occasional over-work at

last undermined a constitution that might, with care and God's

blessing, have continued to the end of the century.

He came to the land of the Dakotas, now Minnesota, in the spring of

1834. The older brother, Samuel, had come out as far as Galena, Ill.,

in the summer previous. The pioneer minister of that country of lead

was Rev. Aratus Kent, who desired to retain Mr. Pond as an adjutant in

his great and constantly enlarging work; but Mr. Pond had heard of the

Sioux, or Dakotas, for whose souls no one cared, and, having decided

to go to them, he sent for his brother Gideon to accompany him.

When they reached Fort Snelling, and made known their errand to the

commanding officer of the post, Major Bliss, and to the resident

Indian agent, Major Taliaferro, they received the hearty approval and

co-operation of both, and the agent at once recommended them to

commence work with the Dakotas of the Lake Calhoun village, where some

steps had already been taken in the line of civilization. There, on

the margin of the lake, they built their log cabin. Last summer Mr.

King's grand Pavilion, so called, was completed on the same spot,

which gave occasion for Mr. Gideon H. Pond to tell the story of this

first effort in that line:

"Just forty-three years previous to the occurrence above alluded

to, on the same beautiful site, was completed an humble edifice,

built by the hands of two inexperienced New England boys, just

setting out in life-work. The foundation-stones of that hut were

removed to make place for the present Pavilion, perchance

compose a part of it. The old structure was of oak logs,

carefully peeled. The peeling was a mistake. Twelve feet by

sixteen, and eight feet high, were the dimensions of the

edifice. Straight poles from the tamarack grove west of the lake

formed the timbers of the roof, and the roof itself was of the

bark of trees which grew on the bank of what is now called

'Bassett's Creek,' fastened with strings of the inner bark of

the bass wood. A partition of small logs divided the house into

two rooms, and split logs furnished material for a floor. The

ceiling was of slabs from the old government saw-mill, through

the kindness of Major Bliss, who was in command of Fort

Snelling. The door was made of boards split from a log with an

axe, having wooden hinges and fastenings, and was locked by

pulling in the latch-string. The single window was the gift of

the kind-hearted Major Lawrence Taliaferro, United States Indian

agent. The cash cost of the building was one shilling, New York

currency, for nails used in and about the door. 'The formal

opening' exercises consisted in reading a section from the old

book by the name of BIBLE, and prayer to Him who was its

acknowledged author. The 'banquet' consisted of mussels from the

lake, flour and water. The ground was selected by the Indian

chief of the Lake Calhoun band of Dakotas, Man-of-the-sky, by

which he showed good taste. The reason he gave for the selection

was that 'from that point the loons would be visible on the

lake.'

"The old chief and his pagan people had their homes on the

surface of that ground in the bosom of which now sleep the

bodies of deceased Christians from the city of Minneapolis, the

Lake Wood cemetery, over which these old eyes have witnessed,

dangling in the night breeze, many a Chippewa scalp, in the

midst of horrid chants, yells, and wails, widely contrasting

with the present stillness of that quiet home of those

'Who sleep the years away.'

That hut was the home of the first citizen settlers of Hennepin

county, perhaps of Minnesota, the first school-room, the first

house for divine worship, and the first mission station among

the Dakota Indians."

The departure of Mr. Pond called forth from Gen. Henry H. Sibley so

just and beautiful a tribute, that I can not forbear inserting a

portion, from the _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul:--

"When the writer came to this country, in 1834, he did not

expect to meet a single white man, except those composing the

garrison at Fort Snelling, a few government officials attached

to the department of Indian affairs, and the traders and

voyageurs employed by the great fur company in its business.

There was but one house, or, rather, log cabin, along the entire

distance of nearly 300 miles between Prairie du Chien and St.

Peters, now Mendota, and that was at a point below Lake Pepin,

near the present town of Wabashaw. What was his surprise then to

find that his advent had been preceded in the spring of the same

year by two young Americans, Samuel W. Pond and Gideon H. Pond,

brothers, scarcely out of their teens, who had built for

themselves a small hut at the Indian village of Lake Calhoun,

and had determined to consecrate their lives to the work of

civilizing and Christianizing the wild Sioux. For many long

years these devoted men labored in the cause, through manifold

difficulties and discouragements, sustained by a faith that the

seed sown would make itself manifest in God's good time. The

efforts then made to reclaim the savages from their mode of

life, the influence of their blameless and religious walk and

conversation upon those with whom they were brought in daily

contact, and the self-denial and personal sacrifices required at

their hands, are doubtless treasured up in a higher than human

record."

General Sibley mentions an incident belonging to this period of their

residence at Lake Calhoun, which never before came to my knowledge:--

"Gifted with an uncommonly fine constitution, the subject of

this sketch met with an accident in his early days, from the

effects of which it is questionable if he ever entirely

recovered. He broke through the ice at Lake Harriet in the early

part of the winter, and as there was no one at hand to afford

aid, he only saved his life after a desperate struggle, by

continuing to fracture the frozen surface until he reached

shallow water, when he succeeded in extricating himself. His

long immersion and exhaustive efforts brought on a severe attack

of pneumonia, which for many days threatened a fatal

termination."

My own personal acquaintance with Mr. Pond commenced in the summer of

1837. He was then, and had been for a year previous, at Lac-qui-parle.

In September my wife and I joined that station, and the first event

occurring after that, which has impressed itself upon my memory, was

the marriage of Mr. Pond and Miss Sarah Poage, sister of Mrs. Dr.

Williamson. This was the first marriage ceremony I had been called

upon to perform; and Mr. Pond signalized it by making a feast, and

calling, according to the Saviour's injunction, "the poor, the maimed,

the halt, and the blind." And there was a plenty of such to be called

in that Dakota village. They could not recompense him, but "he shall

be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."

Mr. Pond had long been yearning to see what was inside of an Indian.

He sometimes said he wanted to be an Indian, if only for a little

while, that he might know how an Indian felt, and by what motives he

could be moved. When the early spring of 1838 came, and the ducks

began to come northward, a half-dozen Dakota families started from

Lac-qui-parle to hunt and trap on the upper part of the Chippewa

River, in the neighborhood of where the town of Benson now is. Mr.

Pond went with them and was gone two weeks. It was in the month of

April, and the streams were flooded and the water was cold. There

should have been enough of game easily obtained to feed the party. But

it did not prove so. A cold spell came on, the ducks disappeared, and

Mr. Pond and his Indian hunters were reduced to scanty fare, and

sometimes they had nothing for a whole day. But Mr. Pond was seeing

inside of Indians and was quite willing to starve a good deal.

However, his stay with them, and their hunt for that time as well, was

suddenly terminated, by the appearance of the Ojibwa chief

Hole-in-the-Day and ten men with him. They came to smoke the

peace-pipe, they said. They were royally feasted by three of the

families, who killed their dogs to feed the strangers, who, in turn,

arose in the night and killed the Dakotas. As God would have it, Mr.

Pond was not then with those three tents, and so he escaped.

No one had started with more of a determination to master the Dakota

language than Gideon H. Pond. And no one of the older missionaries

succeeded so well in learning to talk just like a Dakota. Indeed, he

must have had a peculiar aptitude for acquiring language; for in these

first years of missionary life, he learned to read French and Latin

and Greek, so that the second Mrs. Pond writes: "When I came, and for

a number of years, he read from the Greek Testament at our family

worship in the morning. Afterward he used his Latin Bible, and still

later his French Testament."

In this line of literary work General Sibley's testimony is

appreciative. He says:--

"Indeed, to them, and to their veteran co-laborers, Rev. T. S.

Williamson and Rev. S. R. Riggs, the credit is to be ascribed of

having produced this rude and rich Dakota tongue to the learned

world in a written and systematic shape, the lexicon prepared by

their joint labors forming one of the publications of the

Smithsonian Institute at Washington City, which has justly

elicited the commendation of experts in philological lore, as a

most valuable contribution to that branch of literature."

While Mr. Pond was naturally ambitious, he was also peculiarly

sensitive and retiring. When the writer was left with him at

Lac-qui-parle, Dr. Williamson having gone to Ohio for the winter,

although so much better master of the Dakota than I was at that time,

he was unwilling to take more than a secondary part in the Sabbath

services. "Dr. Williamson and you are ministers," he would say. And

even years afterward, when he and his family had removed to the

neighborhood of Fort Snelling, and he and his brother had built at Oak

Grove, with the people of their first love, Gideon H. could hardly be

persuaded that it was his duty to become a preacher of the Gospel. I

remember more than one long conversation I had with him on the

subject. He seemed to shrink from it as a little child, although he

was then thirty-seven years old.

In the spring of 1847, he and Mr. Robert Hopkins were licensed by the

Dakota presbytery, and ordained in the autumn of 1848. We were not

disappointed in our men. Mr. Hopkins gave evidence of large adaptation

to the missionary work; but in less than three years he heard the call

of the Master, and went up through a flood of waters. Mr. Pond,

notwithstanding his hesitation in accepting the office, became a most

acceptable and efficient and successful preacher and pastor.

After the treaties of 1851, these Lower Sioux were removed to the

Upper Minnesota. White people came in immediately and took possession

of their lands. Mr. Pond elected to remain and labor among the white

people. He very soon organized a church, which in a short time became

a working, benevolent church--for some years the banner Presbyterian

church of Minnesota in the way of benevolence. When, in 1873, Mr. Pond

resigned his pastorate, he wrote in his diary, "I have preached to

the people of Bloomington twenty years." He received home mission aid

only a few years.

We are very glad to have placed at our disposal so much of the private

journal of the late Rev. G. H. Pond as relates to the wonderful work

of God among the Dakotas in prison at Mankato, Minn., in the winter of

1862-63. The facts, in the main, have been published before; but the

story, as told so simply and graphically by Mr. Pond, may well bear

repeating. Mr. Pond arrived at Mankato Saturday, January 31, 1863, and

remained until the afternoon of Tuesday, February 3:--

"There are over three hundred Indians in prison, the most of

whom are in chains. There is a degree of religious interest

manifested by them, which is incredible. They huddle themselves

together every morning and evening in the prison, and read the

Scriptures, sing hymns, confess one to another, exhort one

another, and pray together. They say that their whole lives have

been wicked--that they have adhered to the superstitions of

their ancestors until they have reduced themselves to their

present state of wretchedness and ruin. They declare that they

have left it all, and will leave all forever; that they do and

will embrace the religion of Jesus Christ, and adhere to it as

long as they live; and that this is their only hope, both in

this world and in the next. They say that before they came to

this state of mind--this determination--their hearts failed them

with fear, but now they have much mental ease and comfort.

"About fifty men of the Lake Calhoun band expressed a wish to

be baptized by me, rather than by any one else, on the ground

that my brother and myself had been their first and chief

instructors in religion. After consultation with Rev. Marcus

Hicks of Mankato, Dr. Williamson and I decided to grant their

request, and administer to them the Christian ordinance of

baptism. We made the conditions as plain as we could, and we

proclaimed there in the prison that we would baptize such as

felt ready heartily to comply with the conditions--commanding

that none should come forward to receive the rite who did not

do it heartily to the God of heaven, whose eye penetrated each

of their hearts. All, by a hearty--apparently hearty--response,

signified their desire to receive the rite on the conditions

offered.

"As soon as preparations could be completed, and we had

provided ourselves with a basin of water, they came forward,

one by one, as their names were called, and were baptized into

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, while each

subject stood with his right hand raised and head bowed, and

many of them with the eyes closed, with an appearance of

profound reverence. As each one passed from the place where he

stood to be baptized, one or the other of us stopped him and

addressed to him, in a low voice, a few words, such as our

knowledge of his previous character and the solemnities of the

occasion suggested. The effect of this, in most cases, seemed

to very much deepen the solemnity of the ceremony. I varied my

words, in this part of the exercises, to suit the case of the

person; and when gray-haired medicine-men stood literally

trembling before me, as I laid one hand on their heads, the

effect on my mind was such that at times my tongue faltered.

The words which I used in this part of the service were the

following, or something nearly like them in substance: 'My

brother, this is the mark of God which is placed upon you. You

will carry it while you live. It introduces you into the great

family of God, who looked down from heaven, not upon your head,

but into your heart. This ends your superstition, and from this

time you are to call God your Father. Remember to honor him. Be

resolved to do his will.' It made me glad to hear them respond,

'Yes, I will.'

"When we were through, and all were again seated, we sung a

hymn appropriate to the occasion, in which many of them joined,

and then prayed. I then said to them, 'Hitherto I have

addressed you as friends; now I call you brothers. For years we

have contended together on this subject of religion; now our

contentions cease. We have one Father--we are one family. I

must now leave you, and probably shall see you no more in this

world. While you remain in this prison, you have time to attend

to religion. You can do nothing else. Your adherence to the

Medicine Sack and the Wotawe has brought you to ruin. Our Lord

Jesus Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. He

looks not on your heads nor on your lips, but into your

bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a term of brotherly

salutation, to which you have been accustomed in your medicine

dance, and say to you, Brothers, I spread my hands over you and

bless you.' The hearty answer of three hundred voices made me

feel glad.

"The outbreak and events which followed it have, under God,

broken into shivers the power of the priests of devils, which

has hitherto ruled these wretched tribes. They were before

bound in the chains and confined in the prison of Paganism, as

the prisoners in the prison at Philippi were bound with chains.

The outbreak and its attendant consequences have been like the

earthquake to shake the foundation of their prison, and every

one's bonds have been loosed. Like the jailer, in anxious fear

they have cried, 'Sirs, what must we do to be saved?' They have

been told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who will still

save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. They say

they repent and forsake their sins--that they believe on him,

that they trust in him, and will obey him. Therefore they have

been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of

the Holy Ghost, _three hundred in a day_."

In the spring of 1853, Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond departed, after a

lingering illness of eighteen months, and left a "blessed memory."

There were seven children by this marriage, all of whom are living,

and have families of their own, but George, who died while in the Lane

Theological Seminary. In the summer of 1854, Mr. Pond was married to

his second wife, Mrs. Agnes C. J. Hopkins, widow of Rev. Robert

Hopkins. The second Mrs. Pond brought her three children, making the

united family of children at that time ten. Six have been added since.

And there are twenty-two grandchildren, six of whom are members of the

Church of Christ, together with all the children and their companions.

Is not that a successful life? Counting the widowed mother and those

who have come into the family by marriage, there are, I understand,

just fifty who mourn the departure of the patriarch father. A little

more than two-score years ago, he was one; and now behold a

_multitude_!

Mary Frances Hopkins, who came into the family when a girl, and

afterward married Edward R. Pond, the son, writes thus: "To me he was

as near an own father as it is possible for one to be who is so by

adoption, and I shall always be glad I was allowed to call him

father."

The members of the synod of Minnesota will remember with great

pleasure Mr. Pond's presence with them at their last meeting at St.

Paul, in the middle of October. For some years past, he has frequently

been unable to be present. This time he seemed to be more vigorous

than usual, and greatly entertained the synod and people of St. Paul

with his terse and graphic presentation of some of the Lord's workings

in behalf of the Dakotas.

During the meeting I was quartered with Mrs. Governor Ramsay. On

Saturday I was charged with a message to Mr. Pond, inviting him to

come and spend the night at the governor's. We passed a profitable

evening together, and he and I talked long of the way in which the

Lord had led us; of the great prosperity he had given us in our

families and in our work. Neither of us thought, probably, that that

would be our last talk this side the golden city. The next day,

Sabbath, he preached in the morning, for Rev. D. R. Breed, in the

House of Hope, which, probably, was _his last sermon_. In the evening

he was with us in the Opera House, at a meeting in the interest of

home and foreign missions.

"His health gradually failed," Mrs. Pond writes, "from the time of his

return from synod, though he did not call himself sick until the 11th

of January, 1878, and he died on Sabbath, the 20th, about noon." She

adds: "His interest in the Indians, for whom he labored so long, was

very deep, and he always spoke of them with loving tenderness, and

often with tears. One of the last things he did was to look over his

old Dakota hymns, revised by J. P. W. and A. L. R., and sent to him

for his consent to the proposed alterations."

"His _simple faith_ in the Lord Jesus caused him all the time to live

a life of self-denial, that he might do more to spread the knowledge

of Jesus' love to those who knew it not." The love of Christ

constrained him, and was his ruling passion.

Of his last days the daughter says:--

"He really _died of consumption_. The nine days he was confined to bed

he suffered much; but his mind was mostly clear, and he was very glad

to go. I think the summons was no more sudden to him than to Elijah.

He was to the last loving and trustful, brave and patient. To his

brother Samuel, as he came to his sick bed, he said: 'So we go to see

each other die.' Some time before he had visited Samuel when he did

not expect to recover. 'My struggles are over. The Lord has taken care

of me, and he will take care of the rest of you. My hope is in the

Lord,' he said.

"Toward the last it was hard for him to converse, and he bade us no

formal farewell. But the words, as we noted them down, were words of

cheer and comfort: 'You have nothing to fear, for the present or the

future.' And so was given to him the victory over death, through faith

in Jesus."

_Is that dying? He sleeps with his fathers. He has gone to see the

King in his beauty, in a land not very far off._

As loving hands ministered to him in his sickness, loving hearts

mourned at his death. On the Wednesday following he was buried. A half

a dozen brothers in the ministry were present at his funeral, and,

fittingly, Mr. Breed of the _House of Hope_ preached the sermon.

_This is success._

S. R. R.

SOLOMON.

In the summer of 1874 Rev. John P. Williamson made a tour up the

Missouri River as far as Fort Peck. His judgment was that there was no

opening at that place for the establishment of a new mission, but that

something might possibly be done by native Dakotas. In the meantime,

we had heard from the regions farther north than Fort Peck, where some

of our church-members had gone after the outbreak of 1862. Somewhere

up in Manitoba, near Fort Ellice, was Henok Appearing Cloud, with his

relatives. His mother, Mazaskawin,--_Silver-Woman_,--was a member of

the Hazelwood church, and his father, Wamde-okeya,--_Eagle Help_,--had

been my old helper in Dakota translations. These were all near

relatives of Solomon Toonkanshaecheye, one of our native pastors.

Dr. Williamson, by correspondence with the Presbyterian Board,

obtained an appropriation of several hundred dollars to send a native

missionary to these Dakotas in Canada. Solomon gladly accepted the

undertaking, and in the month of June, 1875, started for Manitoba with

Samuel Hopkins for a companion.

They were received with a great deal of joy by their friends, who

entreated them to stay, or come back again if they left. But

provisions were very scarce, and hard to be obtained; and hence they

determined to return to the Sisseton agency before winter. While in

Manitoba they had taught and preached the Gospel, and baptized and

received several persons to the fellowship of the church. Solomon

wrote, before he returned, "Indeed, there is no food; they have laid

up nothing at all; so that, when winter comes, where they will obtain

food, and how they will live, no one knows. But I have already found

something of what I have been seeking, and very reluctantly I turn

away from the work."

Solomon and Samuel returned to Sisseton, but their visit had created a

larger desire for education and the privileges of the Gospel. In the

March following, Henok Appearing Cloud wrote that he had taught school

during the winter, and conducted religious meetings, as he "wanted the

Word of God to grow." In much simplicity, he adds: "Although I am

poor, and often starving, I keep my heart just as though I were rich.

When I read again in the Sacred Book what Jesus, the Lord, has

promised us, my heart is glad. I am thinking, if a minister will only

come this summer and stay with us a little while, our hearts will

rejoice. If he comes to stay with us a long time, we will rejoice

more. But as we are so often in a starving condition, I know it will

be hard for any one to come."

Rev. John Black of Keldonan Manse, near Winnipeg, heard of this visit

of Solomon to Manitoba, and of the desire of those Dakotas to have a

missionary. He at once became deeply interested in the movement, and

wrote to Dr. Williamson, at St. Peter, proposing that the Presbyterian

Missionary Society of Canada should take upon themselves the charge of

supporting Solomon as a missionary among the Dakotas of the Dominion.

But when the matter was brought before the missionary committee, they

decided that the condition of their finances would not allow them to

add to their burdens at that time. It was not, however, given up, and

a year later the arrangement was consummated. In the _Word Carrier_

for December, 1877, appeared this editorial:--

"The most important event occurring in our missionary work

during the month of October is the departure of Rev. Solomon

Toonkanshaecheye, with his family, for Fort Ellice, in the

Dominion of Canada. This has been under advisement by the

Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society of Canada for two years

past. Rev. John Black of Keldonan Manse, Manitoba, has been

working for it. A year ago the funds of the society would not

admit of enlargement in their operations. This year their way

has been made clear, and the invitation has come to Solomon to

be their missionary among the Dakotas on the Assinaboine River.

They pay his expenses of removal, and promise him $600 salary.

"He has gone. Agent Hooper of Sisseton agency furnished him

with the necessary pass, and essentially aided him in his

outfit, and so we sent him off on the tenth day of October,

invoking God's blessing upon him and his by the way, and

abundant success for him in his prospective work. From the

commencement of negotiations in regard to this matter it has

been of special interest to Dr. T. S. Williamson of St. Peter.

He has conducted the correspondence with Mr. Black. And now,

while the good doctor was lying nigh unto death, as he

supposed, the arrangement has gone into effect. If this prove

to be his last work on earth (may the good Lord cause

otherwise), it will be a matter of joy on his part that thus

the Gospel is carried to regions beyond, by so good and

trustworthy a man as we have found Solomon to be all through

these years."

Thus was the work commenced. Dr. Williamson did not pass from us then,

but lived nearly two years longer, and was cheered by the news of

progress in this far-off land. This being among our first efforts to

do evangelistic work by sending away our native ministers, our hearts

were much bound up in it. The church of Long Hollow was reluctant to

give up their pastor, and to me it was giving up one whom I had

learned to trust, and, in some measure, to depend upon, among my

native pastors. But it was evidently God's call, and he has already

justified himself, even in our eyes. Solomon found a people prepared

of the Lord, and, in the summer of 1878, he reports a church organized

with thirteen members, which they named Paha-cho-kam-ya--Middle

Hill--of which Henok was elected elder.

In the next winter Solomon and Henok made a missionary tour of some

weeks, of which we have the following report. The letter is dated

"February 22, 1879, at Middle Hill, near Fort Ellice, North-west

Territory":--

"This winter it seemed proper that I should visit the Dakotas

living in the extreme settlements, to proclaim to them the Word

of God. I first asked counsel of God, and prayed that he would

even now have mercy on the people of these end villages, and

send his Holy Spirit to cause them to listen to his Word. Then I

sent word to the people that I was coming.

"Then I started with Mr. Enoch, my elder. The first night we

came to three teepees of our own people at Large Lake, and held

a meeting with them. The next morning we started, and slept

four nights. On the fifth day we came to a large encampment on

Elm River. There were a great number of tents, which we

visited, and prayed with them, being well received. But as I

came to where there were two men, and prayed with them, I told

them about him whose name was Jesus--that he was the Helper

Man, because he was the Son of God. That he came to earth, made

a sacrifice of himself, and died, that he might reconcile all

men to God; that he made himself alive again; that, although

men have destroyed themselves before God, whosoever knows the

meaning of the name of Jesus, and fears for his own soul, and

prays, he shall find mercy, and be brought near to God. That is

the Name. And he is the Saviour of men, and so will be your

Saviour also, I said.

"Then one of them in a frightened way answered me: 'I supposed

you were a Dakota, of those who live in cabins. It is not

proper that you should say these things. As for me, I do not

want them. Those who wish may follow in that way; but I will

not. You who hold such things should stay at home. What do you

come here for?'

"Walking-nest then said: 'You are Cloudman's son, I suppose,

and so you are my cousin. Cousin, when we first came to this

country there was a white minister who talked to us and said:

"Your hands are full of blood; therefore, when your hands

become white, we will teach you." So he said, and when you

brought a book from the south, while they were looking at it,

blood dropped from above upon it; and behold, as the white

minister said, I conclude we are not yet good. Therefore, my

cousin, I am not pleased with your coming,' he said.

"But there were only two men who talked in this way. We left

them and visited every house in the camp. Many may have felt as

those men did, but did not say it openly. The men said they

were glad, and welcomed us into their tents.

"The next day I came into a sick man's tent whose name was

Hepan, lying near to death. I talked with him, and prayed to

God for him. Then he told me how he longed to hear from his

friends down south, and mentioned over half a dozen names of

his relatives. A woman also, who was present, said: 'I want to

know if my friends are yet living.'

"Then we continued our visiting from house to house. Sometimes

we found only children in the tent; sometimes there were men

and women, and I prayed with them and told them a word of

Jesus. So we came to the teepees in the valley. Then I met Iron

Buffalo. There we spent the Sabbath, and held meeting, having

twenty-three persons present. A chief man, whose name is

War-club-maker, called them together.

"Our meetings there being finished, we departed and came to the

Wahpaton village. They were making four sacred feasts. We did

not go into them. But, visiting other houses, we passed on

about five miles, when night came upon us. Still we went on to

the end of the settlement, where we held a meeting. The teepee

was small, but there I found a sick man who listened to the

Word. This was Chaskay, the son of Taoyatedoota. He said he was

going to die, and from what source he should hear any word of

prayer, or any comforting word of God, was not manifest. But

now he had heard these things, and was very glad, he said. This

way was the best upon earth, and he believed in it now. So,

while we remained there, he wanted us to pray with and for him,

he said.

"We spent one day there, and the second day we started home,

and came to Hunka's tent, and so proceeded homeward. When we

had reached the other end of the settlement, we learned that

the white ministers were to hold a meeting of presbytery. They

sent word to us to come, and so in the night, with my

Hoonkayape, Mr. Enoch, I went back. They asked us to give an

account of our missionary journey among the Dakotas. And so we

told them where we had been and what we had done. Also, we gave

an account of things at Middle Hill, where we live. When we had

finished, they all clapped their hands. Then they said they

wanted to hear us sing a hymn of praise to God in Dakota. We

sang 'Wakantanka Towaste,' and at the close they clapped their

hands again.

"Then two men arose, one after the other. The first said: 'I

have not expected to see such things so soon among the Dakotas.

But now I see great things, which I like very much.' The other

man spoke in the same way.

"Men and women had come together in their prayer-house, and so

there was a large assembly.

"Then the minister of that church arose and said: 'White

people, who have grown up hearing of this way of salvation, are

expected to believe in it, and I have been accustomed to

rejoice in the multiplication of the Christian church; but I

rejoice more over this work among the Dakotas.'"

Both of these men came home to watch and wait by the sick-bed of dear

children. Nancy Maza-chankoo-win,--Iron Road Woman,--the daughter of

Henok, died April 28, 1879. She was thirteen years old, read the

Dakota Bible well, and was quite a singer in the prayer assemblies.

They say: "We all thought a great deal of her; but now she too has

gone up to sing in the House of Jesus, because she was called."

From Middle Hill, near Fort Ellice in Manitoba, comes a letter written

on May 20 by our friend Solomon. He reports _seven_ members added by

profession of faith to his church in April, and ten children baptized.

There, as here, the season has been a sickly one, and many deaths have

occurred. For three months he has had sickness in his own family. His

story is pathetic. "Now," he says, "my son Abraham is dead. Seven

years ago, at Long Hollow, in the country of the Coteau des Prairies,

he was born on January 12, 1872. And on the 23d of June following, at

a communion season at Good Will Church, he was baptized. When Mr.

Riggs poured the water on him, he was called Abraham. And then in the

country of the north, from Middle Hill, May 9, 1879, on that day, his

soul was carried home to the House of Jesus.

"Five months after he was born, I wanted to have him baptized. I

always remember the thought I had about it. Soon after a child is

born, it is proper to have it baptized. I believed that baptism alone

was not to be trusted in, and when one is baptized now it is finished

is not thinkable. But in Luke 18:16, our Lord Jesus says: 'Suffer the

little children to come unto me'; and so taking them to Jesus is good,

since his heart is set on permitting them to come. Therefore, I wanted

this my son to go to Jesus.

"And so from the time he could hear me speak, I have endeavored to

train him up in all gentleness and obedience, in truth and in peace.

Now, for two years in this country he has been my little helper. When

some could not say their letters, he taught them. He also taught them

to pray. And when any were told to repeat the commandments, and were

ashamed to do so, he repeated them first, for he remembered them all.

Hence, I was very much attached to him. But this last winter he was

taken sick, and from the first it seemed that he would not get well.

But while he lived it was possible to help him, and so we did to the

extent of our ability. He failed gradually. He was a long time sick.

But he was not afraid to die. He often prayed. When he was dying, but

quite conscious of everything that took place, then he prayed, and we

listened. He repeated the prayer of the Lord Jesus audibly to the end.

That was the last voice we heard from him. Perhaps when our time

comes, and they come for us to climb up to the hill of the mountain of

Jehovah, then we think we shall hear his new voice. Therefore,

although we are sad, we do not cry immoderately."

That was a beautiful child-life, and a beautiful child-death. Who

shall say there are not now Dakota children in heaven? To have been

the means, under God, of opening in this desert such a well of faith

and salvation is quite a sufficient reward for a lifetime of work.

S. R. R.

DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON.

The father of the Dakota Mission has gone. Thomas Smith Williamson

died at his residence in St. Peter, Minn., on Tuesday, the 24th of

June, 1879, in the _eightieth_ year of his life. My own acquaintance

with this life-long friend and companion in work commenced when I was

yet a boy, just fifty years ago in July. We were new-comers in the

town of Ripley, Ohio, where Dr. Williamson was then a practising

physician of some five years' standing. My mother was taken sick and

died. In her sick-chamber our acquaintance commenced, which has

continued unbroken for half a century.

The silver wedding of the Dakota Mission was celebrated at Hazelwood,

in the summer of 1860. Dr. Williamson himself furnished a sketch of

his life and ancestry for that occasion which has never been

published. From this document, as well as from articles written by his

son, Prof. Andrew Woods Williamson, and published in the _St. Peter

Tribune_ and the _Herald and Presbyter_, much of this life-sketch will

be taken.

Thomas Smith Williamson, M.D., was the son of Rev. William Williamson

and Mary Smith, and was born in Union District, South Carolina, in

March, 1800.

William Williamson commenced classical studies when quite young; but

the school he attended was broken up by the appointment of the teacher

as an officer in the Revolutionary army. When about sixteen years of

age, while on a visit to an uncle's on the head-waters of the Kanawha,

in Virginia, several families in the neighborhood were taken captive

by the Indians, and he joined a company of volunteers which was raised

to go in pursuit. After more than a week's chase, they were entirely

successful, and lost only one of their own number.

When not yet eighteen years old, he was drafted into the North

Carolina militia, and accompanied Gates in his unfortunate expedition

through the Carolinas. After the war was over and the family had

removed to South Carolina, William resumed his studies and was

graduated at Hampton Sidney College--studied theology, and was

ordained pastor of Fair Forest Church, in April, 1793.

The grandfather of Thomas Smith Williamson was Thomas Williamson, and

his grandmother's maiden name was Ann Newton, a distant relative of

Sir Isaac and Rev. John Newton. They were both raised in Pennsylvania,

but removed first to Virginia and then to the Carolinas, where they

became the owners of slaves, the most of whom were purchased at their

own request to keep them from falling into the hands of hard masters.

Thus Rev. William Williamson was born into the condition of

slaveholder. By both his first and second marriage also, he became the

owner of others, which, by the laws of South Carolina, would have been

the property of his children. For the purpose of giving them their

liberty, he removed, in 1805, from South Carolina to Adams County,

Ohio. Before her marriage, Mary Smith had taught a number of the young

negroes to read. And of their descendants quite a number are now in

Ohio. It should be remembered that the Smiths and Williamsons of the

eighteenth century thought it right, under the circumstances in which

they were, _to buy and hold slaves, but not right to sell them. They

never sold any_.

Thomas Smith Williamson inherited from his father a love for the study

of God's Word, and a practical sympathy for the down-trodden and

oppressed, which were ever the distinguishing characteristics of his

life. He was also blessed with a godly mother and with five

earnest-working Christian sisters, four of whom were older than

himself. He was converted during his stay at Jefferson College,

Cannonsburg, Pa., where he graduated in 1820. Soon after, he began

reading medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William Wilson of West

Union, Ohio, and, after a very full course of reading, considerable

practical experience, and one course of lectures at Cincinnati, Ohio,

completed his medical education at Yale, where he graduated in

medicine in 1824. He settled at Ripley, Ohio, where he soon acquired

an extensive practice, and April 10, 1827, was united in marriage with

Margaret Poage, daughter of Col. James Poage, proprietor of the town.

Perhaps no man was ever more blessed with a helpmeet more adapted to

his wants than this lovely, quiet, systematic, cheerful, Christian

wife, who for forty-five years of perfect harmony encouraged him in

his labors.

They thought themselves happily settled for life in their pleasant

home, but God had better things in store for them. His Spirit began

whispering in their ears the Macedonian cry. At first, they excused

themselves on account of their little ones. They felt they could not

take them among the Indians, that they owed a duty to them. They

hesitated. God removed this obstacle in his own way--by taking the

little ones home to himself. As this was a great trial, so was it a

great blessing to these parents. This was one of God's means of so

strengthening their faith that, having once decided to go, neither of

them ever after for one moment regretted the decision, doubted that

they were called of God to this work, or feared that their life-work

would prove a failure.

In the spring of 1833, Dr. Williamson placed himself under the care of

the Chillicothe Presbytery, and commenced the study of theology. In

August of that year he removed with his family to Walnut Hills, and

connected himself with Lane Seminary. In April, 1834, in the First

Presbyterian Church of Red Oak, he was licensed to preach by the

Chillicothe Presbytery.