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"I am travelling," replied the meek disciple of peace, "towards the dwellings of thy brethren, to teach them the knowledge of the only true God, and to lead them to peace and happiness." "To peace and happiness!" answered the tall chief, while his eye flashed fire "Behold the blessings that follow the footsteps of the white man; wherever he comes the nations of the woodlands fade from the eye like the mists of morning. Once over the wide forest of the surrounding world, our people roamed in peace and freedom, nor ever dreamed of greater happiness, than to hunt the beaver, the bear and the wild deer. From the farthest extremity of the great deep came the white man armed with thunder and lightning, and weapons still more pernicious. In war he hunted us like wild beasts; in peace he destroyed us by deadly liquors, or yet more deadly frauds. Yet a few moons had passed away and whole nations of invincible warriors, and of hunters that fearless swept the forest and the mountain, perished vainly opposing their triumphant invaders; or quietly dwindled into slaves and drunkards, and their names withered from the earth. Retire, dangerous man, leave us all we yet have left, our savage virtues and our gods; and do not in the vain attempt to cultivate a rude and barren soil pluck up the few thrifty plants of native growth, that have survived the fostering cares of thy people, and weathered the stormy career of their pernicious friendship." The tall chief darted into the wood, and the good missionary pursued his way with pious resolution.

He preached the only true divinity, and placed before the eyes of the wondering savages the beauty of holiness, the sufferings of the Redeemer, and the sublime glories of the christian Heaven. He allured them with the hope of everlasting bliss, and alarmed them with denunciations of an eternity of misery and despair. The awe struck Indians, roused by these accumulated motives, many of them adopted the precepts of the missionary so far as they could comprehend them; and in the

their own. They sometimes called them in their songs "the white foam of the ocean," and this name is still often applied contemptuously, by the savages of the northwest.

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course of eighteen months their devotion became rational, regular, and apparently permanent.

All at once however, the little church in which the good man was wont to pen his fold, became deserted. No votary came as usual to listen with decent reverence to the pure doctrines which they were there accustomed to hear; and only a few solitary idlers were seen of a Sunday-morning lounging about and casting a wistful yet fearful look at their little peaceful and now silent mansion.

The missionary sought them out, inquired into the cause of this mysterious desertion, and told them of the bitterness of hereafter to those who having once known abandoned the religion of the only true God. The poor Indians shook their heads, and informed him that the Great Spirit was angry at their apostacy, and had sent a prophet for the summit of the Alleghany mountain, to warn them against the admission of new doctrines; that there was to be a great meeting of the old men soon, and that the prophet would there deliver to the people the message with which he was intrusted. The zealous missionary determined to be present, and to confront the impostor who was known by the appellation of the Prophet of the Alleghany. He accordingly obtained permission from the chiefs to appear at the council, and to reply to the charges that might be brought forward. The 12th day of June 1802, was the time fixed for the decision of this solemn question, "whether the belief of their forefathers, or that of the white men was the true religion?" The usual council house not being large enough to contain so great an assemblage of people, they met in a valley about eight miles to the westward of the Seneca Lake. This valley was then embowered under lofty trees; it is surrounded on almost every side with high rugged hills, and through it meanders a small river.

It was

heart.

a scene to call forth every energy of the human On a smooth level, near the bank of the slow stream, under the shade of a large elm sat the chief men of the tribes. -Around the circle which they formed, was gathered a croud of wondering savages, with eager looks, seeming to demand the

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true God at the hands of their wise men. In the middle of the circle sat the aged and travel worn missionary.-A few gray hairs wandered over his brow, his hands were crossed on his bosom, and as he cast his hope beaming eye to Heaven, he seemed to be calling with pious fervour upon the God of truth to vindicate his own eternal word by the mouth of his servant. For more than half an hour there was silence in the valley, save the whispering of the trees in the south-wind, and the indistinct murmuring of the river. Then all at once a sound of astonishment passed through the croud, and the prophet of the Alleghany, was seen descending one of the high hills; with furious and frenzied step, he entered the circle, and waving his hand in token of silence, the missionary saw with wonder, the same tall chief who four years before had crossed him in the Tuscarora forest. The same panther-skin hung over his shoulder, the same tomahawk quivered in his hand, and the same fiery and malignant spirit burned in his red eye. He addressed the awestruck Indians, and the valley rung with his iron voice.

"Red man of the woods, hear what the Great Spirit says to his children who have forsaken him!

"Through the wide regions that were once the inheritance of my people, and where for ages they roved as free as the wild winds, resounds the axe of the white men. The paths of your forefathers are polluted by their steps, and your hunting fields are every day wrested from you by their arts. Once on the shores of the mighty ocean your fathers were wont to enjoy all the luxuriant delights of the deep. Now you are exiles in swamps or on barren hills; and these wretched possessions you enjoy The shrill cry by the precarious tenure of the white man's will.

of revelry or war no more is heard on the majectic shores of the Hudson, or the sweet banks of the silver Mohawk. There where the Indian lived and 'died free as the air he breathed, and chased the panther and the deer from morn till eveningeven there the christian slave cultivates the soil in undisturbed possession; and as he whistles behind his plow, turns up the sacred remains of your buried ancestors. Have ye not heard at evening and sometimes in the dead of night, those mournful

and melodious sounds that steal through the deep vallies, or along the mountain sides like the song of echo? These are the wailings of those spirits whose bones have been turned up by the sacrilegious labours of the white men, and left to the mercy of the rain and the tempest. They call upon you to avenge them they adjure you by every motive that can rouse the hearts of the brave, to wake from your long sleep and by returning to these invaders of the grave the long arrears of vengeance, restore again the tired and wandering spirits to their blissful paradise far beyond the blue hills.*

These are the blessings you owe to the christians. They have driven your fathers from their ancient inheritance-they have destroyed them with the sword and poisonous liquorsthey have dug up their bones, and there left them to bleach in the wind-and now they aim at completing your wrongs, and insuring your destruction by cheating you into the belief of that divinity, whose very precepts they plead in justification of all the miseries they have heaped upon your race.

"Hear me, O, deluded people for the last time!-If you persist in deserting my altars, if still you are determined to listen with fatal credulity to the strange pernicious doctrines of these christian usurpers-if you are unalterably devoted to your new gods, and new customs-if you will be the friend of the whiteman, and the follower of his God-my wrath shall follow you. I will dart my arrows of forked lightning among your towns, and send the warring tempests of winter to devour you. Yey shall become bloated with intemperance, your numbers shall dwindle away until but a few wretched slaves survive, and these shall be driven deeper and deeper into the wild, there to associate with the dastard beasts of the forest, who once fled before the mighty hunters of your tribe. The spirits of your fathers shall curse you from the shores of that happy island. in the great lake, where they enjoy an everlasting season of hunting, and chase the wild deer with dogs swifter than the wind. Lastly, I swear, by the lightning, the thunder and the tem

* "The answering voices heard from the caves and hollows which the Latins call echo, they (the Indians) suppose to be the wailings of souls wandering through these places." Pitero Martire:

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pest, that in the space sixty moons, of all the Senecas not one of yourselves or your posterity shall remain on the face of the earth."

The prophet ended his message, which was delivered with the wild eloquence of real or fancied inspiration, and all at once the croud seemed to be agitated with a savage sentiment of indignation against the good missionary. One of the fiercest broke though the circle of old men to despatch him, but was restrained by their authority.

When this sudden feeling had somewhat subsided, the mild and benevolent apostle obtained permission to speak in behalf of him who had sent him. Never have I seen a more touch

ing pathetic figure than this good man. He seemed past sixty -his figure tall yet bending-his face mild, pale, and highly intellectual and over his forehead which yet displayed its blue veins were scattered at solitary distances a few gray hairs. Though his voice was clear, and his action vigorous, yet there was that in his looks, which seemed to say his pilgrimage was soon to close forever.

With pious fervour, he described to his audience, the glory, power and beneficence of the Creator of the whole universe: He told them of the pure delights of the christian Heaven, and of the neverending tortures of those who rejected the precepts of the Gospel: He painted in glowing, and fervid colours the filial piety, the patience, the sufferings of the Redeemer, and how he perished on the cross for the sins of the whole human race: and finally he touched with energetic brevity on the unbounded mercies of the Great Being who thus gave his only begotten Son a sacrifice for the redemption of mankind.

When he had concluded this part of the subject, he proceeded to place before his now attentive auditors, the advantages of civilization, of learning, science, and a regular system of laws and morality. He contrasted the wild Indian roaming the desert in savage independence; now revelling in the blood of enemies, and in his turn the victim of their insatiable vengeance; with the peaceful citizen enjoying all the comforts of cultivated life in this happy land, and only bounded in his indulgences, by those salutary restraints which contribute as well to his own

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