ssionary,
will you help me to be a Christian?"
Surprised and pleased by this abrupt question, I replied, "Certainly I
will; that is my business here."
"Will you help my wife and children also to become Christians?" he added
with equal emphasis.
"Of course I will," I answered again. "It was for just such work as
that my good wife and I came from our far-away home to live in this
land."
Naturally I had already become very much interested in this big, bronzed
Indian; and so I said to him, "Tell me who you are, and from what place
you have come."
I made him sit down before me, and he told me the following remarkable
story. I wish I could put into the narrative his pathos and his
dramatic action. He did not keep his seat very long after he began
talking, but moved around, and at times was very much excited. He
said,--
"Many years ago, when I was a little boy, I was kindly cared for by the
first Missionary, Mr Evans. I was a poor orphan. My father and mother
had died, leaving none to care for me; so the good Missionary took me to
his own house and was very kind to me. 'Tis true I had some relatives,
but they were not Christians and so there was not much love in their
hearts towards a poor orphan boy. So Mr Evans took me to his house,
and was very kind to me. He gave me clothes and food, and a home. He
taught me to read the new letters he had made for our people, and told
me much about the Great Spirit and His Son Jesus. He taught me and
other children to pray to God, and he often talked to us about Him, and
how kind and good He was. He kept me with him two or three years, and I
was very well off indeed in having such a home and such a friend, if I
had only known it.
"One summer, among the many Indians who came to trade their furs at the
Company's store, was one family who lived very far away. They seemed to
take a liking to me, and often would talk to me. They had no little
boy, they said, in their wigwam, and they told me a lot of foolish stuff
about how much happier I would be, if I lived with them, than I was
here, where I had to obey the white man. Like the foolish child that I
was, I listened to this nonsense, and one night, when they had got
everything ready to start, I slipped quietly out of the house and joined
them. We paddled hard most of the night, for we felt that we had done
wrong, and did not know but we should be followed.
"After travelling many days we reached their hunting g
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