Page:What cheer, or, Roger Williams in banishment (1896).pdf/198

 STANZA LXIX.

Until Sowaniu's breezes scatter flowers again.

Sowaniu, or the Paradise of the Indians, was supposed to be an island in the far southwest. It was the favorite residence of their great god, Cawtantowit, and the land of departed spirits. The balmy southwest was a gale breathed from the heaven of the Indians.

STANZA LXXX.

"And may the Manittoo of dreams," he said, &c.

Manittoo—a God. It is a word which seems to have been applied to an extraordinary power, or mysterious influence. Any astonishing effect, produced by a cause which the Indians could not comprehend, they appear to have ascribed to the agency of a Manittoo. It is natural for man to draw his ideas of power or causation, from what he feels in himself; and when he does so, he will ascribe the effects which he observes to the influence of mind. As he advances in knowledge the number of these mysterious agents diminishes, until at last he is forced upon the idea of one great, designing, first cause or agent. Man, from his very constitution, therefore, must be a believer in the existence of God. He approaches a knowledge of his unity by degrees, and improves in his religious opinions in the same manner as he advances to the science of astronomy. How essential then is that freedom of opinion which our Founder sought to establish!