in Indian and in Cherokee. The agent, in his report for 1876, says:

Among them are men noted for their talents and learning. Their government is conducted with marked ability and dignity. Their schools stand as monuments to their progress in civilization. Only a few years ago they assembled in council under trees or in a rude log-house, with hewed logs for seats: now the legislature assembles in a spacious brick council-house, provided with committee rooms, a senate chamber, a hall of representatives, a library, and rooms for executive offices, which cost an outlay of $22,000. Their citizens occupy neat, hewed, double log-cabins, or frame, brick, or stone houses, according to means or taste, with grounds adorned by ornamental trees, shrubbery, and flowers, with nearly every usual improvement, including orchards of the choicest fruit. Their women are usually good housekeepers, and give great attention to spinning and weaving yarns, jeans, and linsey. The farmers raise most of their own wool and cotton, and it is not an unusual thing in a well-to-do farmer's house to see a sewingmachine and a piano.- Commissioners' Report for 1876, p. 61.

We cannot pursue these dry details any further, and shall not be greatly surprised if they seem to the reader as "old wives' fables," so different are they from what we might expect after reading in the daily papers such frequent reports of Indians capturing trains, Indians running off stock, and Indians murdering and scalping defenseless citizens. But it must be remembered that there are still a few bands, like that of Sitting Bull, made up of renegade Indians, who have rejected all civilizing influences, and assorted together to gratify their wild propensities for raiding and plunder. They are not connected with any agency, and are the declared enemies of the Government. Then the vast interior naturally affords great scope for marauders; and there are enterprising robbers among Indians as well as among the white races. It should also be remembered that the famous Mountain Meadow massacre was the work of white men disguised as Indians; and it would be very strange if there were not turbulent spirits hanging on the edges of civilization who assumed the role of the Indian while they committed deeds of robbery and murder. But these outrages grow less year by year, and Indian wars are evidently drawing to a close. The Indian Commissioner said two years ago that there could never be another great Indian war, and subsequent events have tended to confirm the accuracy of his

judgment. A small band of robbers, well armed and on fleet horses, may cause wide-spread alarm, and may give organized troops much trouble; but the conflicts which they invoke should hardly be dignified with the name of war.

The Indians are coming to understand that they are completely in the power of the Government, and that if they would escape destruction they must adopt the usages of civilization. On this subject the Commissioner says:

Except in the Indian Territory, and, perhaps, Dakota, the white population exceeds that of the Indian. Hence no new hunting grounds remain, and civilization or the entire destruction of the Indians is inevitable. If they cannot be taught, and taught very soon, to accept the necessities of their situation, and begiu in earnest to provide for their own wants by labor in civilized pursuits, they are destined to speedy extinction.-Commissioners' Report for 1876, p. 6.

The remarkable results which have crowned the honest efforts of the last eight years point the way out of all the perplexities of "the Indian Question," including that of expenditure. It is now absolutely certain that the Indian can be allured from his wild ways and taught "to walk in the white inan's road;" that he can be educated with facility; that he can be induced to change his mode of life; that his ambition to excel in the chase or in the battle is the same ambition which will make him a successful farmer, mechanic, or tradesman; and that by far the cheapest and most effective method with him is that which helps him to become an independent citizen.

Already has this idea fastened itself strongly on many of the Indians who are somewhat advanced in the arts of peace, and they are forsaking their tribal relations and settling down on farms like other industrious and thrifty citizens. In November, 1875, one of the Indian superintendents writes from Omaha that Agricultural and mechanical industry is rapidly increasing among the male members of all our Indian tribes. Indian apprentices are now learning all the mechanical trades of the agencies. They are apt scholars and good workmen, but lack self-reliance, and generally prefer a white man for foreman. A portion of the Santee-Sioux, about seventy-five families, containing three hundred and twelve persons, have removed to Flandreau, Dakota, where they have filed homestead papers, and propose taking on themselves the responsibilities of American citizens. A small portion

of the Winnebagoes in Minnesota have already been admitted to citizenship, and the entire tribe are rapidly advancing toward citizenship.-Letter of Barclay White in Board Report for 1875, p. 112.

The tendency of such facts cannot be mistaken, for with citizenship ends all our troublesome Indian questions. If an Indian can be converted into a citizen by these methods of peace and instruction, then it follows that a few years of earnest and persistent training, aided by such missionary work as our Churches are always ready to bestow, will solve the Indian problem, and put an end to Indian annuities, Indian treaties, Indian raids, and Indian wars.

In view of these facts the retrograde movement for turning the Indians over to the care of the army is, beyond expression, repulsive. The army is the sword of the nation, and a beneficent power in executing judgment; but all military rule is arbitrary, and force provokes force, so that the end would be, not civilization but extermination. On this subject the Board of Commissioners in one of their reports say :

It can hardly be a question with thoughtful men whether it is not better to educate the Indians, to build houses and schools and churches for them, to teach them to cultivate the soil and acquire useful trades, to civilize and Christianize them, than to hand them over to a government that we do not choose for ourselves or our children; a government that would feel no interest in, and would make no effort for, the advancement of those whom it governed; a government which is opposed to the genius of liberty and the progress of the race.- Commissioners' Report for 1875, p. 15.

In 1868, before the present policy was adopted, a Peace Commission, consisting of eight distinguished citizens, had this subject under consideration, and expressed their views as follows:

To determine this properly we must first know what is to be the future treatment of the Indians. If we intend to have war with them, then the Bureau should go over to the department of war; but if we intend to have peace, it should remain in the civil department. In our judgment such wars are wholly unnecessary; and, hoping that the Government and the country will agree with us, we cannot advise the change. But Congress might authorize the President to turn over to the military the exclusive control of such tribes as may be continually hostile or unmanageable.-Commissioners' Report for 1875, p. 18.

The soldier is only an element in civilization when he acts as the executor to enforce the mandates of justice. In other respects his influence is almost invariably evil. He is habituated to arbitrary restraint, and his tension in one direction is apt to result in a corresponding looseness in the other direction. Hence he is proverbially easy and corrupt when off duty, and is always an evil influence about an Indian camp. On this subject Agent Wilbur writes as follows:

The presence of the military is regarded by the better class of Indians as destructive to morality, good order, and progress in civilization. Judging from the effect produced when this Agency was turned over to a military officer for eighteen months, it would be destructive to every thing like industry, morality, and civilization. It suffered a loss of at least forty thousand dollars during those months. Drinking and drunkenness, gambling and debauching the Indian women, became the common order. Quite a number of the better class of Indians left the Agency, and did not return until there was a change of administration.-Letter in Report of Board of Commissioners for 1875, p. 100.

In conclusion, we must express the opinion that the Indian problem which has perplexed so many wise statesmen during the first hundred years of our existence has been solved by these eight years of direct and unselfish effort, and that the way to complete and final success lies in pursuing the same road. Hence we unite our voice with those who find something to approve in the late administration of President Grant. Even if he had not fought a battle; if he had not established the principle of arbitration in the settlement of the national disputes; if he had not commanded compensation for the spoliation of our commerce; if he had not been a successful administrator through eight years of peace, growth, and prosperity, there would still be his Indian policy to render his name illustrious.

A few days before the close of his administration a considerable body of gentlemen, connected with the philanthropic movements of the age and representing important associations, met the Board of Indian Commissioners at their quarterly meeting in Washington, and formed a Convention. There were present such men as Bishop Whipple, of the Episcopal Church; Richard Bentley and Edward Earle, Friends; J. M. Reid, Secretary of the Missionary Society of the M. E. Church; S. S. Cutting, Corresponding Secretary of the American

Home Baptist Missionary Society; J. D. Lowrie, Secretary of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church; M. E. Strieby, Secretary of the American Missionary Society, etc.

After concluding their deliberations they addressed a joint note to the President, in which, after making some recommendations and urging the continuance of the same general policy, they say:

The Convention regards it as at once a duty and a pleasure to express its belief that the policy of peace and fair dealing with the Indians is wise, humane, and worthy of a Christian people. The Convention also expresses its high opinion of the firmness of the President in adhering to this line of benevolent action in the face of misunderstanding and opposition. The Convention would therefore respectfully tender to him its grateful acknowledgments for his admirable course of procedure toward the long-oppressed Indian tribes.-Proceedings in Washington Evening Star, Feb. 8, 1877.

This modest indorsement of a policy which has the ring of true wisdon and of great statesmanship, and has been rendered successful by great forbearance and great perseverance, may well be accepted by the Christian world.

ART. III.-MRS. HANNAH PEARCE REEVES, PREACHER OF THE GOSPEL.

WHAT the rights of women are remains, after a century of discussion and experiment, an undetermined problem, as regards a practical or an approximately definite solution. The equal prerogative of the sexes to labor in nearly all provinces of legitimate work, is maintained theoretically by some of the best thinkers of the time; and the slow but continuous pressure of the wedge first forged and thrust-rather roughly, it must be admitted-by a club of reformers, apparently indicates that the status of women, though uncertain as yet, as we have said, is tending naturally toward confirmed and established settlement. The chief hinderance thus far to such a result has lain with the sex itself. For with classes, nations, any and all divisions of society, the test of deserving liberty inheres in the will to acquire it. An earnestness of purpose, intense and sustained-a "beautiful agony," as the Greek phrase describes