When All Were Assembled, The
Missionary Preached A Christian Sermon On The Fall Of Man And The
Atonement Whereby Christ, The Son Of God, The Chief Of Chiefs, Had
Redeemed All Mankind, Provided That This Redemption Was Voluntarily
Accepted With Repentance Of Their Sins And The Keeping Of His
Commandments.
When the missionary had finished his sermon, Chief Shakes slowly
arose, and, after thanking the missionary for coming so
Far to bring
them good tidings and taking so much unselfish interest in the
welfare of his tribe, he advised his people to accept the new
religion, for he felt satisfied that because the white man knew so
much more than the Indian, the white man's religion was likely to be
better than theirs.
"The white man," said he, "makes great ships. We, like children, can
only make canoes. He makes his big ships go with the wind, and he
also makes them go with fire. We chop down trees with stone axes; the
Boston man with iron axes, which are far better. In everything the
ways of the white man seem to be better than ours. Compared with the
white man we are only blind children, knowing not how best to live
either here or in the country we go to after we die. So I wish you to
learn this new religion and teach it to your children, that you may
all go when you die into that good heaven country of the white man
and be happy. But I am too old to learn a new religion, and besides,
many of my people who have died were bad and foolish people, and if
this word the missionary has brought us is true, and I think it is,
many of my people must be in that bad country the missionary calls
'Hell,' and I must go there also, for a Stickeen chief never deserts
his people in time of trouble.
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