There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to the Indians, anf Jesus' hard sayings to the rich and about the rich were entirely comprehensible to us. Yet the religion that we heard preached in churches and saw practiced by congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely repellent.

     I am reminded of a time when a missionary undertook to instruct a group of our people in the truth of his holy religion. He told them of the creation of the earth in six days, and of the fall of our first parents by eating an apple.

     My people were courteous, and listened attentively; and after thanking the missionary, one man related in his own turn a very anchient tradition concerning the origin of the maize. But the missionary plainly showed his disgust and disbelief, indignantly saying, "What I delivered to you were sacred truths, but this that you tell me is mere fable and falsehood!"

     "My brother,"ravely replied the offended Indian, "it seems that you have not been well grounded in the rules of civility. You saw that we, who practice these rules, believed your stories. Why, then, do you refuse to credit ours?"

     Who may condemn our belief? surely not the devout Catholic, or even the Protestant missionary who teaches Bible miracles as literal fact! The logical person must either deny all miracles or none, and our American Indian myths and hero stories are no less credible than those of the Hebrews of old.

     strange as it may seem, it is true that in our secret soul we despised the good men who came to convert and enlighten us! To our mind, the professionalism of the pulpit, the paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and unedifying thing, and it was not until our spirit was broken and our moral and physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest, and strong drink, that the Christian missionaries obtained any real hold upon us.

     Nor were its proselytism and hypocrisy the only elements in the alien religion that offended us. We found it shocking and almost incredible that among this race that claimed to be superior there were many who did not even pretend to profess the faith. Not only did they not profess it, but they stooped so low as to insult their God with profane and sacrilegious speech! In our own tongue the name of God was not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence, much less lightly and irreverently.

     More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material. They bought and sold everything: time, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even the ministrations of their holy faith!

     The higher and spiritual life, though first in theory, was clearly secondary, if not entirely neglected, in practice.

 

 

 

     This lust for money, power, and conquest did not escape moral condemnation at our hands, nor did we fail to contrast this conspicuous trait of the dominant race with the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus.

     I remember the words of one old battle-scarred warrior. I was at the time meeting with groups of young men - sioux, Cheyenne, Cree, Ojibwe, and others - in log cabins or little frame chapels trying to set before them in simple language the life and character of the man Jesus.

     The old warrior got up and said, "Why, we have followed this law you speak of for untold ages! We owned nothing, before everything if from the Creator. Food was free, land as free as sunshine and rain. who has changed all this? The white man. And yet he says he is a believer in God! He does not seem to inherit any of  the traits of his Father, nor does he follow the example set by his brother Christ."

     Another of the older men, called upon for his views, kept a long silence. Finally, he said, "I have come to the conclusion that this Jesus was an Indian. He was opposed to material acquisition and to great possessions. He was inclined to peace. He was unpractical as any Indian and set to price upon his labor of love. These are not the principles upon which the white man has founded his civilization. It is strange that he could not rise to these simple principles which were so commonly observed among our people."