exertions to keep the Methodists (above all others) on the back ground, it would seem as if they considered us the greatest enemies of the Christian religion existing on the soil.

The uniformity with which the missionaries who come among us from the east press their claims and extend their operations, leads us to suspect that they undergo a thorough training before they leave home; and it is somewhat remarkable that they seem to direct all their measures with a view to oppose and render ineffectual the labors and plans of the Methodists. I should be exceedingly sorry to indulge in uncharitable thoughts respecting the designs of any sect of professing Christians, but I cannot help suspecting that Methodism is the main object of their attack. This I judge from a variety of circumstances, not necessary to be mentioned. But whatever may be the object of them or others, I trust in God, that we, as a people, will mind our own work, and go on in his name to preach salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, until all the sinners in this Reserve shall be converted to God.

Notwithstanding all the ways and means used to impede our progress, the march of Methodism has been onward. Our meetings, and especially our camp meetings and other popular meetings have been, for many years, numerously attended, and have resulted in the salvation of many hundreds of precious souls. Our ministry is fast improving in experience and useful knowledge, as they advance in years: and both preachers and people, taken as a whole, were never more spiritual in their ministrations and devotions than at the present time. Men of science, business, and property, are overcoming the prejudices of the day, and uniting with us, not for the sake of worldly gain, but for conscience' sake. Some scores of chapels already stand on the firm and sure basis of our deed of settlement, and scores more are now in contemplation or in progress. And we have pleasing prospects of future usefulness from the promising talents which begin to develope themselves in many of the youth who have placed themselves in our ranks. For all which, together with all other mercies and blessings, we feel thankful to God.

Hubbard, Ohio, Feb. 4, 1832.

ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

Adventures on the Columbia River, including the Narrative of a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky mountains, among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown: together with a journey across the American continent. By Ross Cox. 8vo. pp. 335.

THE discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus, in the year 1692, gave a new impulse to the human mind, and opened a wide and variegated field for the exercise and display of its energies. And from that memorable era to the present time the abo

riginal inhabitants of this extensive continent have been the constant objects of attention, either as forming a theme of speculation for the philosopher, as subjects on which the Christian missionary could exercise his benevolence in reclaiming them from their savage barbarity, or as beings destined to become the sport of fortune with whom the mercenary white man might carry on a lucrative traffic, and enrich himself with the spoils of the untaught Indians. What considerate American can read the history of his country without alternate feelings of admiration and regret, of joy and sorrow, at the manner in which its native inhabitants have been treated? Even in tracing the adventurous history of the bold and intrepid Columbus, whose name is now and ever will be associated with the heroic benefactors of mankind, we cannot but feel some abatement of our admiration of his character when we recollect the sad necessity he felt himself under to introduce native slavery into his newly acquired colonies. And our apologies-for we are compelled to apologize for this part of his conduct-detract from the glory of his achievements, while they afford demonstrations that the force of his circumstances compelled him to be unjust, and to resort to a species of cruelty even at the very time he was filling the world with the fame of his valorous deeds and his perilous enterprises.

But what shall we say for some of his successors? Not content with robbing Columbus of his justly acquired fame as the discoverer of a new continent, and the founder of a new and mighty empire, in which the old world could empty itself of its surplus population, and enrich itself with the spoils of the vanquished inhabitants, by associating the name of the country with the name of his rival, they made themselves odious in the eye of posterity by their deeds of cruelty toward the natives whom they had conquered. Almost all our pleasure is indeed lost in reading the history of the discovery and settlement of Spanish America by the necessary association of Spanish cruelty with its heroic and chivalrous deeds. Christianity, especially, bleeds at every pore, being' stabbed in the house of its friends,' while its professed advocates were attempting to introduce it among the untaught inhabitants of Mexico and South America. Who would now think of converting pagans to the sublime doctrines and mild precepts of Christianity with the crucifix in one hand and the sword in the other! Yet this was the way in which the Mexicans were compelled to renounce the gods of their fathers and embrace the religion of their conquerers.

Is it any wonder that these natives imbibed an unconquerable hatred against the hard-hearted invaders of their soil? Is it any matter of wonder that they rebelled against them? To have submitted without a struggle to treatment so cruel, to conduct so perfidious, to practices so destructive of their liberties, independence, and happiness, would have betrayed an abjectiveness of mind and an insensibility of nature not to be found among any beings possessed

of reason or animation. Even the brute beast will struggle for his life and liberty while under the hand of his conqueror and oppressor, so long as life remains. And surely it is not in human nature to submit in quietness to be stripped at once of its only covering from the storm and tempest, to be turned out houseless and compelled to roam friendless and forlorn, or be driven under the merciless lash of its cruel oppressor and tormentor, without a sigh or groan.

But such was the condition of many of the native clans of South America. And it would seem as if these states were even now, as they have been for some time past, groaning under the hand of a retributive justice, which visits the iniquities of their fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate' God, and who refuse to appease his wrath by repentance and restitution.

Let us, however, turn away our eyes from beholding this horrid picture of human perversity, suffering, and misery, where courage and humanity, abjectness, tyranny and wickedness, alternately struggled for the mastery, and while pity weeps at beholding such sad evidences of human degradation and misery, let us turn our attention to another region of our country, on which, though often stained with the blood of the slain, we find some bright spots to relieve the eye from the pain of seeing nought but 'garments rolled in blood,' defenceless villages ravaged, innocent victims falling under the sword of the vanquisher, women despoiled of their virtue, and whole nations reduced to slavery under the hand of an odious despotism: we say, let us turn from these scenes of desolation and wo, on which the eye seems to linger with a sort of instinctive but sorrowful sympathy for the oppressed sufferer, to a more favored portion of our country.

North America presented to the European adventurer another, and, in many respects, altogether a different race of human beings. Like the country which he inhabited, wild and uncultivated, a climate less enervating and more conducive to health of body and vigor of intellect, our ancestors found a race of barbarians, though lofty in stature and intellect, yet wild and untutored, and though savage in their manners, yet quite friendly toward their visiters. Here, also, a more Christian-like intercourse with the natives marked the conduct of the emigrants. With their minds strongly, though somewhat superstitiously-having but just escaped from the relics of popery and the land of civil and religious despotismimbued with religious truth, at an early period of their settlement they endeavored to introduce to the natives of these forests the blessings of Christianity. And in this work of mercy and charity they happily succeeded in many instances and to a considerable extent. Many of the savages, we have reason to believe, were savingly converted to the Christian faith, at different periods of the settlements of New-England, as well as in other parts of our country.

But notwithstanding these efforts of piety and benevolence, coupled as they were with a desire to civilize these wild barbarians, they gradually receded before the advance of civilized man, and, either voluntarily for a stipulated price, or compelled from the circumstances in which they were placed, resigned their inheritance to the invaders of their soil. As if made to roam in the wilderness and to obtain a scanty livelihood by their bows and arrows, they sought shelter in the wilds from the sun of civilization and the lights of revelation. And even those who embraced Christianity, and became in some measure civilized, did not long retain their standing in their adopted community, but gradually melted away or mingled again with the Pagans of the forest.

Such has been the fate of the original possessors of the American soil. We cannot help thinking, however, that it might have been otherwise. Had our forefathers brought to these sons of nature the blessings of Christianity and civilization pure and unmixed with European policy and European vices, we have reason to conclude that other results would have been witnessed. Instead of deteriorating in their morals and degenerating in their habits and mannersas they evidently have since the period they were visited by the white man, an era in their history might have commenced at that time which should have dated the beginning of their glory and renown among the nations of the earth. Though savage in their mannersbeing ignorant of letters and the arts of civilized life-they were strangers to many of those vices by which the Europeans were distinguished and disgraced, and by which the Indians were corrupted and destroyed. To those destructive diseases of the body, which are the necessary accompaniments of luxury, and the precursors of premature old age and death, they were strangers; and though unrestrained from sensual indulgence by the rites and laws of matrimony, and though the passion for revenge in their numerous wars was allowed full scope, yet they were not then stimulated in either of these things by intoxicating liquors. No! To the Europeansto the civilized and Christianized Europeans-were they indebted for the use of this liquid poison! How mortifying to reflect that those who came among them under the professions of friendship, at the very time they held out to them in one hand the blessing of Christianity, should have presented to them with the other the cup which contained the means of their destruction! Is it any wonder that hatred almost irreconcilable and interminable should have entered their hearts against those invaders of their rights and destroyers of their quietude? How many have fallen under the merciless tomahawk and cruel scalping knife, who might have escaped had it not been for the fury infused into their brains by the use of ardent spirits! The present generation have no other means left to roll off this mighty load of guilt, which has been accumulating for years, and which, in many instances, is still growing heavier VOL. III.-July, 1832.

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and heavier by the repetition of the same odious practice, than by making a speedy restitution to these injured tribes.

This work has recently been begun, and with a promising success. But still the philanthropist and the Christian missionary have to contend with those evils we have been deprecating. To the disgrace of our countrymen, the same mercenary spirit which impelled some of our ancestors-for thank God they were not all involved in the same horrid traffic and crime-to cheat the Indian by first making him drunk, invites many a mercenary trader to carry on the same demoralizing practice from the hope of temporal gain. If our nation is free from a temporizing policy toward the natives, carried on with a view to deprive them of their inheritance and drive them still farther back into the wilderness-which we awfully fear is not the case-are there not thousands of individuals who, lost to all sense of justice and humanity, are still sucking their life blood from their veins ? Actuated by a cupidity, as sordid as it is disgraceful, do they not still hurl among them the bottles and kegs of whiskey and rum, for the base purpose of decoying them into the fatal snares which they have laid for their unwary feet? Does not the hope of temporal gain still swallow up every moral principle, and stifle in its mercenary progress every sting of conscience? Such is the direful influence of the root of all evil, the love of money.

Even while we are writing the sound of war is heard from the west. The Sioux and the Foxes have again lifted the fatal hatchet, and are burying it in the heads of their white neighbors. Why is this? Is there not a cause? Cannot the Indian reason? Is he not as much alive to his own interests as the white man?. May he not conclude that he might as well die fighting for his rights, for his inheritance, as to be for ever driven by those who ought to protect him, back, and yet farther back, until he shall reach the utmost verge of the far west, and thence plunge hopelessly into the western ocean? And can we blame him? Can we accuse him of unmanly feelings or of unnatural love and hatred? Is it not natural for him to love his country, his kindred, his fireside, though it be only in the middle of a wigwam? And is it not equally natural for him to hate those who thus oppress him, deprive him of his rights, despoil him of his inheritance, and drive him from his native soil and hunting ground? Let us put ourselves in his place, and we shall be at no loss to answer these questions. Let us at last awake to our own true interests, to the Indian's interest, and to the interests of humanity. Let us redeem our character as a nation, as Christians, and as individuals who have ourselves an immortal interest at stake. Let us fly to their relief with the blessing of Christianity in the one hand, and the arts and comforts of civilized and domestic life in the other. In a word, let us arouse from the slumber of ages, and exert ourselves in the name of the Lord Jesus who died for all men, to wipe off the reproach under