Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/305

 reverence by the thoughtless voyageurs; and even the poor Indians, who by the cessation of the Jesuit missions, have relapsed into their former habits, pay the utmost respect to the houses, which were inhabited, as they say, by "the good white fathers, who, unlike other men, never robbed or cheated them." Since the annexation of Canada to the British crown, Indian conversion has almost ceased; or has made, at most, a slow and sickly progress. Their moral amelioration is completely neglected by both English and Americans; and it is only in periods of war that we pay them any attention. The first settlers of the United States did not act so. They fought their way through the country with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other and it was not until the former ceased to convince that recourse was had to the latter. Objectionable, however, as this system undoubtedly was, the plan adopted by the modern Americans is more so. Their anti-republican love of aggrandisement, by the continual extension of their territorial possessions, must sooner or later destroy the unity of their confederation; and it is a subject deeply to be lamented that, in their gradual encroachments on the Indian lands, Christianity is forgotten, the word of God does not now, as in the time of their