prayer came to him like the song to the bird.
"O Great Spirit, father of my spirit, the sun is thy messenger, but
thou art brighter than the sun. Drive thou the darkness before me. Be
thou the light of my spirit." As Wo went down the mountain and took
the journey back to the home of his people, his face shone, and the
light never seemed to leave it, so that men called him "He of the
shining face."
{164}
When Wo came back to his tribe, all who saw his face knew that he had
found the answer, and they gathered again about the council fire to
hear. As Wo stood up and looked into the eager faces in the circle of
the fire, he remembered that the Great Spirit had given him no message
and for a moment he was dumb. Then the words of the Great Spirit came
to him again. "When thy people and mine shall need to know my will, my
spirit shall brood over thine and the words that thou shalt speak
shall be my words." Looking into the eager faces of longing and
questioning, his Spirit moved within him and he spoke:
"I went, I sought, I found the Great Spirit who dwells in the earth as
your spirits dwell in your bodies. It is from Him the spirit comes. We
are His children. He cares for us more than a mother for the child on
her breast, or the father for the son that is his pride. His love is
like the air we breathe: it is about us; it is within us.
"The sun is the sign of His brightness, the sky of His greatness and
mother-love and father-love, and the love of man and woman are the
signs of His love. We are but His children; we cannot enter into the
council of the Great Chief until we have been proved, but this is His
will, that we love one another as He loves us; that we bury forever
the hatchet of hate, that no man shall take what is not his own and
the strong shall help the weak."
The chiefs did not wholly understand the words of Wo, but they took a
hatchet and buried it by the fire saying, "Thus bury we hate between
man and his brother," and they took an acorn and put it in the earth
saying, "Thus plant we the love of the strong for the weak." And it
became the custom of the tribe that the great council in the spring
should bury the hatchet and plant the acorn. Every morning the tribe
gathered to greet the rising sun, and with right hand raised and left
upon their hearts prayed: "Great Spirit hear us; guide us to-day; make
our wills Thy will, our ways Thy way."
And the tribe grew stronger and greater and wiser than all t
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