RIEND and Brother:-It was the will of the Great Spirit that we should meet together this day. He orders all things and has given us a fine day for our council. He has taken His garment from before the sun and caused it to shine with brightness upon us. Our eyes are opened that we see clearly; our ears are unstopped that we have been able to hear distinctly the words you have spoken. For all these favors we thank the Great Spirit, and Him only. Brother, this council fire was kindled by you. It was at your request that we came together at this time. We have listened with attention to what you have said. You requested us to speak our minds freely. This gives us great joy; for we now consider that we stand upright before you and can speak what we think. All have heard your voice and all speak to you now as one man. Our minds are agreed s Brother, you say you want an answer to your talk before you leave this place. It is right you should have one, as you are a great distance from home and we do not wish to detain you. But first we will look back a little and tell you what our fathers have told us and what we have heard from the white people. Brother, listen to what we say.There was a time when our forefathers owned this great island. Their seats extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of Indians. He had created the buffalo, the deer, and other animals for food. He had made the bear and the beaver. Their skins served us for clothing. He had scattered them over the country and taught us how to take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn for bread. All this He had done for His red children because He loved them. If we had some disputes about our hunting-ground they were generally settled without the shedding of much blood. enemies. They told us they had fled from their own country for fear of wicked men and had come here to enjoy their religion. They asked for a small seat > We took pity on them, granted their request, and they sat down among us. We gave them corn and meat; they gave us poison in return The white people, brother, had now found our country. Tidings were carried back and more came among us. Yet we did not fear them. We took them to be friends. They called us brothers. We believed them and gave them a larger seat. At length their numbers had greatly increased. They wanted more land; they wanted our country Our eyes were opened and our minds became uneasy. Wars took place, Indians were hired to fight against Indians, and many of our people were destroyed. They also brought strong liquor among us. It was strong and powerful, and has slain thousands. Brother, our seats were once large and yours were small. You have now become a great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got our country, but are not yet satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us. Brother, continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a Book. If it was intended for us, as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that Book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people? Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agreed, as you can all read the Book? you collect money from the meeting. I can not tell what this money was intended for, but suppose that it was for your minister; and, if we should conform to your way of thinking, perhaps you They made the chamber sweet with And the bed sweet with flowers on which While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. Brother, we do not understand these To you He has given the arts. To these He has not opened our eyes We know these things to be true. Since He has made so great a difference between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a different religion according to our understanding? The Great Spirit does right He knows what is best for His children; we are satisfied. Bro I did not hear the birds about the eaves, Only my soul kept watch from day to day, At length there came the step upon the Upon the lock the old familiar hand: Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air THE FIRST DAY I wish I could remember the first day, me, If bright or dim the season, it might be So blind was I to see and to foresee, A day of days! I let it come and go If only now I could recall that touch, (Concluded on next page) ther, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own. لمه Brother, you say you have not come to get our lands or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell you that I have been at your meetings and saw may want some from us. Brother, we are told that you have been preaching to the white people in this places. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest, and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will consider again of what you have said. Brother you have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey and return you safe to your friends. -Red Jacket. (Reply to a Missionary who had spoken about his Mission among the Seneca Indians.) OW many a man has dated a on a reveal new ones ›☛ The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them according to his ability, by his word and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality. The solitary hired man farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is drivenashe believes into silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, traveled the same road and had the same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors accord We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are making the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my towns REMEMBER Remember me when I am gone away, When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay. ingly, and is even said to have invented, and established worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let "our church go by the board." men, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need to be provoked goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trots We have a comparatively decent sys tem of common schools, schools for infants only; but excepting the halfstarved Lyceum in the winter, and beginning of a lilatterly the puny brary suggested by the state, no school for ourselves se We spend more on cle of bodily alialmost any artiment or ailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure if they are indeed so well offto pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives. Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Can not students be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some Abelard to lecture to us? Alas! what with foddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too long, and our education is sadly neglected In this country, the village should in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe It should be the patron of fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth. -Henry David Thoreau. Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and, following them, you reach your destiny.-Carl Schurz. Freedom is alone the unoriginated birthright of man; it belongs to him by force of his humanity, and is in dependence on the will and creation of every other, in so far as this consists with every other person's freedom.-Kant. I F any pilgrim monk come from distant parts, if with wish as a guest to dwell in the monastery, and will be content with the customs which he finds in the place, and do not perchance by his lavishness disturb the monastery, but is simply content with what he finds: he shall be received, for as long a time as he desires. If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably, and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it prudently, lest perchance God had sent for this very thing. But, if he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain the matter to him.-St. Benedict. Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. -James Russell Lowell. S to Vaucluse, I well know the beauties of that charming valley, and ten years' residence is proof of my affection for the place. I have shown my love of it by the house which I built there. There I began my article “Africa,” there I wrote the greater part of my epistles in prose and verse. At Vaucluse I conceived the first idea of giving an epitome of the Lives of Illustrious Men, and there I wrote my treatise on a Solitary Life, as well as that on religious retirements. It was there, also, that I sought to moderate my passion for Laura, which, alas, solitude only cherished. And so this lonely valley will be forever sacred to my recollections. -Petrarch. HE enjoyment of my life has been greatly promoted by the undoubted love and untiring kindness of all with whom I have ever lived, and of a numerous association of disciples, from whom I have continually received the most pleasant attentions, in many cases amounting to a devotion to which I was in no way entitled; and I have quite often warned them against the injurious influence of names upon the independence of mind and of free thought on all subjects s I have had much difficulty in convincing many that the authority given to names has been through all past ages most injurious to the human race, and that at this day their weakness of intellect was practised, and the Millennial state of man upon the earth would have been now in full vigor and established for ever What divisions, hatreds, miseries, and dreadful physical and mental sufferings have been produced by the names of Confucius, Brahma, Juggernaut, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Penn, Joe Smith, Come, let me take thee to my breast, And do I hear my Jeannie own That equal transports move her? I ask for dearest life, alone, That I may live to love her. Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, Mother Lee, etc.! If any of these could have imagined that their names should cause the disunion, hatred and suffering which poor deluded followers and disciples have experienced, how these good or well-intentioned persons would have lamented that they had ever lived to implant such deadly hatred between man and man, and to cause so much error and false feeling between those whose happiness can arise only from universal union of mind and co-operation in practise, neither of which can any of the religions of the earth, as now taught and practised, ever produce.-Robert Owen. I clasp my countless treasure; I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share Than sic a moment's pleasure. And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, destructive of mental power and independence. That truth required no name for its support; it substantially supported itself But that falsehood and error always required the authority of names to maintain them in society, and to give them ready currency with those who thever reflected or thought for themselves. Had it not been for the baneful influence of the authority given to names, this false, ignorant, unjust, extravagant, cruel and misery-producing system, of individual interest opposed to individual interest, and of national interests opposed to national interests, could not have been thus long maintained through the centuries that have passed The universe the incalculable, superiority of the true, enlightened, just, economical, merciful, and happiness-producing system, of union between individuals, nations, and tribes, over the earth, would have been long since discovered and EMBRANDT'S domestic troubles served only to heighten and deepen his art and perhaps his best canvases were painted under stress of circumstances and in sadness of heart. His life is another proof, if needed, that the greatest truths and beauties are to be seen only through tears Too bad for the man! But the world-the same ungrateful, selfish world that has always lighted its torch at the funeral pyres of genius-is the gainer. -John C. Van Dyke. To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose the next best. -William Makepeace Thackeray. |