etween the brave warrior and the successful hunter, on the one hand,
and the coward and the unskilful, on the other. If these views be
correct, the inferences to be drawn from the Indian's belief in
immortality and accountability, are of but slender significance.

Corrupt manners and degrading customs never exist, in conjunction with a
pure religious system. The outlines of social institutions are
metaphysically coincident with the limits of piety; and the refinement
of morals depends upon the purity of faith. We may thus determine the
prevailing spirit of a national religion, by observation of domestic
manners and habits; and, among all the relations of life, that of parent
and child is the best index to degree of advancement. Filial piety is
but the secondary manifestation of a devotional heart; and attachment
and obedience to a father on earth, are only imperfect demonstrations of
love to our Father in heaven. What, then--to apply the principle--is the
state of this sentiment in the Indian? By the answer to that question,
we shall be able to estimate the value of his religious notions, and to
determine the amount of hope, for his conversion, justified by their
possession. The answer may be given in a few words: There is no such
sentiment in the Indian character. Children leave their infirm parents
to die alone, and be eaten by the wolves;[32] or treat them with violent
indignity,[33] when the necessity of migration gives no occasion for
this barbarous desertion. Young savages have been known to beat their
parents, and even to kill them; but the display of attachment or
reverence for them, is quite unknown. Like the beast of the forest, they
are no sooner old enough to care for themselves, than they cease even to
remember, by whose care they have become so; and the slightest
provocation will produce a quarrel with a father, as readily as with a
stranger. The unwritten law of the Indian, about which so many writers
have dreamed, enacts no higher penalty for parricide, than for any other
homicide; and a command to honor his father and mother because they
_are_ his father and mother, would strike the mind of an Indian as
simply absurd.

If the possession of a religion, whose fruits are no better than these,
can, of itself, give ground for hope to the Christian philanthropist,
let him cherish it fondly. But it is much to be feared, that the
existence of such a system indefinitely postpones, if it does not
entirely prec