Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/491

Rh under forced training the Indian lost whatever of spontaneous or inherent simplicity or dignity he might have caught as he roamed the woods, a child of nature. The virility of his manhood yielded to a humiliated sense of inferiority. His former attitude of spirit which stood for self-respect was bowed into conscious dread, though not always deference, for the white race.

Some of Eliot's successors, such as Sergeant, Edwards, Brainerd, and others, attempted a simpler method in teaching the Indians. The first of these, though a Calvinist, said he had “learned not to meddle with high themes, such as predestination and the origin of evil, but preached faith, repentance, and morality.” The Jesuit teaching must also in its way have had many elements for confounding and puzzling the minds of their disciples. One of them, a prisoner in Boston, said that he had been taught — or at any rate had so understood the lesson — that the Virgin Mary was a French woman, and that Christ was born in France. Certainly the extremes of difference in means and methods for reaching a result which had any common significance to both parties — such as the making of Christians in belief and life — could hardly present themselves in sharper antagonism than did those of the Jesuit and the Puritan.

The abundant quotations which have been made in the preceding pages from prime authorities, and the comments upon them, present to us in full view the little that has been common between the aims and methods of the two great branches of the Christian church in their efforts to convert the natives. As to the larger proportion of what has been variant and discordant, and even antagonistic, in those aims and methods, charity and wise judgment will best guide the reader in his own decision. The statement has been made with this fulness as regards the beginnings of this missionary work, because, as our space will not allow us to trace its progress and present aspects down to our own time, we may feel relieved of the task by the simple