and many of those who
have not been degraded by association with the frontier class of white
people, nor had their intellects destroyed by the white man's
fire-water, have minds of high order, and reason with a correctness
that would put to the blush the powers of many an educated logician. Yet
are these men called savages, and morally associated with the tomahawk
and scalping knife. Few regard them as reasonable creatures, or as
beings endowed by their creator with souls, that are here to be fitted
for the responsibilities of the Indians hereafter.

Good men are sending the Bible to all parts of the world. Sermons are
preached in behalf of fellow-creatures who are perishing in regions
known only to us in name. And here, within reach of comparatively the
slightest exertion; here, not many miles from churches and schools, and
all the moral influences abounding in Christian society; here, in a
country endowed with every advantage that God can bestow, are perishing,
body and soul, our own countrymen: perishing too from disease,
starvation and intemperance, and all the evils incident to their unhappy
condition. White men, Christian men, are driving them back; rooting out
their very names from the face of the earth. Ah! these men can seek the
country of the Sioux when money is to be gained: but how few care for
the sufferings of the Dahcotahs! how few would give a piece of money, a
prayer, or even a thought, towards their present and eternal good.

Yet are they not altogether neglected. Doctor Williamson, one of the
missionaries among the Sioux, lives near Fort Snelling. He is exerting
himself to the utmost to promote the moral welfare of the unhappy people
among whom he expects to pass his life. He has a school for the Indian
children, and many of them read well. On the Sabbath, divine service is
regularly held, and he has labored to promote the cause of temperance
among the Sioux. Christian exertion is unhappily too much influenced by
the apprehension that little can be done for the savage. How is it with
the man on his fire-water mission to the Indian? Does he doubt? Does
he fail?

As a great motive to improve the moral character of the Indians, I
present the condition of the women in their tribes. A degraded state of
woman is universally characteristic of savage life, as her elevated
influence in civilized society is the conspicuous standard of moral and
social virtue. The peculiar sorrows of the Sioux woman commence a