into the Sioux language, and they had hymn books and
catechisms in the same language. They had learned to speak Sioux
thoroughly, and could preach and sing in that language. Many is the time
I have attended church at the little meeting house, and heard the simple
old Presbyterian hymns sung to the tunes that have resounded for
generations through the meeting houses of New England. It was a most
solemn and impressive spectacle, in the heart of the Indian country, to
see a Christian church filled with devout worshippers all in the costume
of savagery, and to listen to the oft-told story of the Saviour who died
that man might live. Such a scene carries with it a much more convincing
proof of the universality of the Christian religion than a church full
of fashionably dressed people in a great city. It suggests its limitless
application to all the human race, even if dwelling in the remotest part
of the earth.

The experience of these good missionaries had taught them that
civilization was the most potent auxiliary to religion, and, for the
success of either, the other was a necessary aid and adjunct when
dealing with these primitive people. So they set themselves to work to
devise plans to instill into the Indians the elemental principles of
government based on law. They organized a little state or community
among them, through which they endeavored to prove to them the
advantages of civilized rule through the agency of officers of their own
choice and laws of their own making. They called their state "The
Hazelwood Republic," which embraced all the missionary establishment,
and all the Indians they could induce to unite in the enterprise. They
drew a written constitution, the provisions of which were to govern and
direct the conduct of the members and the workings of the community. Of
course, the fundamental principles upon which the whole fabric rested
were similar to those taught by the ten commandments. The Indians, with
the advice of the missionaries, elected a president for the young
republic, and the choice fell upon a wise and upright man, about fifty
years of age, whose name was Ma-za-cu-ta-ma-mi, or "The man who shoots
metal as he walks," and to give the matter a more pronounced
ecclesiastical aspect, they added a scriptural name by way of a prefix
to the names of all the officers. For instance, they called the
president, Paul Ma-za-cu-ta-ma-mi, and one of the deacons, Simon
Ana-wang-ma-ni, which means "The man w