INDIAN LOGIC. 6

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A few years since, whilst the mistaken zeal of many good men, led them to think that their red brethren of the forest might be Christianized before they were civilized,—a missionary was sent out among them to convert them to the Christian faith. The missionary was unfortunately one of those preachers who delight in speculative and abstruse doctrines, and who teach the inefficacy of all human exertions in obtaining salvation. He called the Indians together to hear what he called the Gospel. The Sachem or Chief of the tribe to which he was sent, came with the rest. The missionary in the course of his sermon, (which was upon the very simple and intelligible doctrine of election) undertook to prove, that some were made to be saved, and some to be damned, without any regard to their good or bad conduct. As an illustration of his doctrine, he cited the case of Jacob and Esau, and attempted to show that God loved the one and hated the other before either of them was born. The Sachem heard him attentively, and after meeting invited him to his wigwam. After some conversation, the Sachem thus addressed the Missionary: “Sir, me tell you a story: My wife have two boys, twins; both of them as pretty as the two you tell me about to-day. One of them she love and feed him; the other she let lie on the ground crying. I tell her take him up, or he die. She no mind me. Pretty soon he die. Now what shall I do to her?”—Why, said the Missionary, she ought to be hung!—“Well,” said the Sachem, “then you go home and hang your God, for you say he do just so. You no preach any more here, unless you preach more good than this.” The Missionary finding himself amongst a people too enlightened to give credence to his narrow and heart-revolting principles, thought it expedient to seek a new field of labor.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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