ss and have any great things to say, we say them in a few
words.' With no little ingenuity, but with apparent courtesy, these
sons of the forest declined a mission in their midst. The gist of the
reply is contained in the following sentence: 'Brother, your religion
is very good; but it is only good for white people. It will not do for
Indians, they are quite a different sort of people.'

"On the following day Mr. Bacon started for Detroit, and remained
here until June 2d, when, with his family, he removed to
Missilimackinac, then the great centre of Indian population in our
Territory. Here he remained until August 1804, perfecting himself in
the language, teaching, preaching and pursuing the other labors
incident to his mission. He very clearly saw that a successful Indian
mission involved no inconsiderable expenditure in establishing schools
and in educating the Indians in agriculture and the ruder arts of
civilization. These expenditures were too large for the means of the
Missionary Society, and in January, 1804, they directed the mission to
abandoned, and that Mr. Bacon should remove to the Western Reserve.
The intelligence of this reached Mr. Bacon in July, and in August he
removed and became the first founder of the town of Tallmadge, Ohio.
Thus ended this first Protestant effort to convert the Indians of
Michigan to the faith of the cross. It was while Mr. Bacon was
residing here that Rev. Dr. Bacon was born. We may therefore, with
pride, claim him as a native of our beautiful city."

Sometime after a mission was established at La Pointe near the
southern extremity of Lake Superior. The Mission at Mackinac was
subsequently revived and continued until 1837, when the population
had so entirely changed, and the Indians had discontinued their
visits for purposes of trade, that it was deemed best to abandon it,
which was done, and the property sold. The Rev. Mr. Pitezel, in his
"Lights and Shade of Missionary Life," who visited the island in 1843,
thus speaks of this mission: "We visited the mission establishment
once under the care of the Presbyterian Church, but now abandoned. It
is a spacious building, and was once thronged with native and
half-bred children and youth, there educated at vast expense. Little
of the fruit of this self-sacrificing labor is thought now to be
apparent, but the revelations of eternity may show that here was a
necessary and a very important link in the chain of events, connected
with th