ngular in that
opinion, since we find, so far back as the year 1755, Cadwallader Calden
express himself much to the same effect. "The Five Nations," he says, "are
a poor and generally called barbarous people, bred under the darkest
ignorance; and yet a bright and noble genius shines through these black
clouds. None of the greatest Roman heroes have discovered a greater love
of country, or contempt of death, than these people, called barbarous,
have shown when liberty came in competition. Indeed I think our Indians
have outdone the Romans in this particular. Some of the greatest of those
Roman heroes have murdered themselves to avoid shame or torments; but our
Indians have refused to die meanly or with little pain, when they thought
their country's honour would be at stake by it; but have given their
bodies willingly to the most cruel torments of their enemies, to show, as
they said, that 'the Five Nations' consisted of men whose courage and
resolution could not be shaken. But what, alas! have we Christians done to
make them better? We have, indeed, reason to be ashamed that these
infidels, by our conversation and neighbourhood, are become worse than
they were before they knew us. Instead of virtue, we have only taught them
vice, that they were entirely free from before that time."[20] The Rev.
Timothy Flint, who was himself a missionary, in his "Ten Years' Residence
in the Valley of the Mississippi," observes, page 144,--"I have surely
had it in my heart to impress them with the importance of the subject
(religion). I have scarcely noticed an instance in which the subject was
not received either with indifference, rudeness, or jesting. Of all races
of men that I have seen, they seem most incapable of religious
impressions. They have, indeed, some notions of an invisible agent, but
they seemed generally to think that the Indians had their god as the
whites had theirs." And again, "nothing will eventually be gained to the
great cause by colouring and mis-statement," alluding to the practice of
the missionaries; "and however reluctant we may be to receive it, the real
state of things will eventually be known to us. We have heard of the
imperishable labours of an Elliott and a Brainard, in other days. But in
these times it is a melancholy truth, that Protestant exertions to
Christianize them have not been marked with apparent success. The
Catholics have caused many to hang a crucifix around their necks, which
they show as the