to
quiet regions, and zealots are now busy by conventions, and anxious in
hurrying candidates up to the point. "Anti-masonic" is the word, a kind
of "shibboleth" for those who are to cross the political "fords" of the
new Jordan.

_June 1st_. MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE INDIANS.--There are evidently
some defects in the system. There is too much expended for costly
buildings, and the formation of a kind of literary institutes of much
too high a grade, where some few of the Indians are withdrawn and very
expensively supported, and undergo a sort of incarceration for a time,
and are then sent back to the bosom of the tribes, with the elements of
the knowledge of letters and history, which their parents and friends
are utterly unable to appreciate, and which they, in fact, ridicule. The
instructed youth is soon discouraged, and they most commonly fall back
into habits worse than before, and end their course by inebriety, while
the body of the tribe is nowise bettered. Whatever the defects are,
there are certainly some things to amend in our measures and
general policy.

Mr. Stevens and Mr. Coe, both missionaries, have recently been appointed
to visit the Indian country, with the object of observing whether some
less expensive and more general effort to instruct and benefit the body
of the tribes, cannot be made. The latter has a commentatory letter to
this end, from Gen. Jackson, dated the 19th of March, which denotes an
interest on this topic that argues favorably of his views of
moral things.

"The true system of converting the Indians was, it is apprehended,
adopted by David Brainerd in 1744. He took the Bible, and declared its
truths with simplicity and earnestness in the Indian villages. There was
no preparation of buildings or outlays. In one year he had gathered a
church of pure believers. Their manners immediately reformed; they
became industrious and cleanly, and built houses, and schools, and
tilled the land. All this was a _consequence_, and not a _cause_ of
Christianity." [58]

[Footnote 58: Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 10.]

_2d_. A friend writes: "I believe the literary world is rather lazy just
at this time; at least nothing novel, except words, has reached my eye.
Your _Literary Voyager_ has lately been traveling the rounds amongst
your friends."

_12th_. COPPER MINES.--A private letter, from a high quarter, says:
"Col. Benton's bill, respecting the copper mines, which passed Congress,
only provi