Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/101

Rh light in the exercise of their office, their interpretation of the Christian Gospel, and in loyalty to holy Church, they spent their lives, in perfect self-abnegation, through perils and stern sacrifices, in efforts to win the savages into the saving fold. It seems to us that what they were content to aim for would have been most easy of accomplishment; that the method which they adopted and the result which was to give them full satisfaction were such as might have been readily realized, especially when we consider the docility of the race of savages who were the first subjects of their efforts. They did not task in any way the understandings of the natives, nor provoke them to curious and perplexing exercises. They started with the positive authority, conveyed in simple, direct assertion, without explanation or argument, of the few fundamental doctrines of the Church; asking only, and fully content with, assent to them, however faint might be the apprehension of them by the neophytes, and however vacant or bewildered the mind which was to assimilate from them ideas or convictions. These processes of the understanding might be expected to follow after, if they were naturally and healthfully prompted, in the Christian development of the savage; but implicit acceptance of the elementary lessons was all that was exacted. The Creed and the Lord's Prayer were taught them by rote, first in Latin or Spanish, and as soon as possible interpreted in their own tongues. Then the altar service of the Church, with such gestures and observances as it required, with the help of candles, pictures, emblems, and processions for interpreting and aiding it, constituted the main part of what was exacted as the practice of Christian piety. The wild habits, customs, mode of life, and relations to each other of the savages were interfered with as little as possible. The rite of baptism sealed the salvation of the subject of it, whether infant or adult, and there was haste rather than delay in granting the boon. All the hard task-work of the Protestant missionary, to convey didactic