Silas Tertius Rand

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THE

 

Dying Indian’s

 

DREAM.

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A POEM.

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BY SILAS TERTIUS RAND,

Of Hantsport, Nova Scotia,

MISSIONARY TO THE MIC-MAC INDIANS.

 

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(THIRD EDITION, REVISED.)

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With some Additional Latin Poems.

 

 

WINDSOR, N. S.:

C. W. KNOWLES.

1881

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The Wigwam Scene described in the following pages, occurred at Hantsport, Nova Scotia, in March, 1855. In the Sixth Annual Report of the Mic-Mac Mission, in a letter written immediately after the event, I find it thus described:

“An event of some interest has just occurred here. One of our sick Indians, named John Paul, has just died, and was buried to-day. I have taken from my first acquaintance with him, a great liking to him. I have spent many an hour with him in his wigwam. He always listened attentively to the Scriptures, and engaged readily in religious conversation, and I have not been without hope that the grace of God had taken possession of his heart. Efforts were made to deter him from allowing my visits; but they were unavailing. I never aimed so much to attack his Romish errors directly, as to dwell upon the free salvation of the Gospel—without money and without price. About last New Year’s Day, while I was in Halifax, I was informed that the Romish priest had sent orders to him to leave Hantsport, and had threatened him with all the curses of the Church if he remained. His statement to me when I returned, was: “I won’t leave this place till I choose. It is not in the power of any man to keep me out of Heaven. That is a matter between God and my own soul.” He said in Indian: “Neen alsoomse.” “I am my own master.” He remained. He continued to listen to the Bible with attention, and to receive my visits with kindness and respect till he died. I now recollect that when I came to read to him, he would send the small children away, so that we might not be disturbed. The last time I saw him was a precious season to my own soul. It seemed easy to speak of the Great Redeemer, and of the way of Salvation. I may say that special prayer was made for him in the Meeting House, where a number of christian friends were assembled on the day before he died, holding a special prayer meeting on our own account. More than one fervent prayer was offered up for the dying Indian. After the meeting I returned to my own house, where I met an Indian from John Paul’s wigwam, who informed me that the poor fellow was near his end. “But oh,” said he, “he is wonderfully happy! He says he is going right to heaven, and that he has already had a glimpse of that bright happy world. He has been exhorting us all, and telling us how easy it is to be saved. He dreamed last night that he was in heaven. Heaven seemed to him to be an immense great palace, as large as this world, all formed of gold. He saw there the glorious Redeemer, surrounded by an immense Host of Saints and Angels, all drest in white. As he entered he thought they gathered round him and shouted: John Paul has come! John Paul has come!” The poor fellow did not die until the following morning, and just before he died he looked up towards heaven, and declared that he saw the angels, and the Glory of God. He was astonished that the others could not see what he saw. He wanted them to hold up his children, that they might see the wonders that he himself saw. He then sank back on his pillow and quietly expired.

It will be thus seen that the following Poem is not a work of fiction. It aims to relate—with some license of imagination, of course, else it would not be poetry—a plain historical fact. The description of Paul’s skill and knowledge as a hunter, and in managing their frail little water-crafts in a sea, is literally true of many of the Indians, and was true of him. His peace of mind in committing his family into the hands of God, after he found himself disabled, having burst a blood vessel by carrying a large load, from which he never recovered—he related to me: and this is expressed in the prayer put into his mouth at the close, “which we did not fully hear or share.”

It may be added that after the Poem was written, I read it to the Indian who gave me the account of John Paul’s death, and as he spoke the English language well, he had no difficulty in understanding it. And he assured me that it described the scene correctly.

I may add that the measure—or rather the utter disregard of all regular measure—was suggested by an old poem I saw somewhere, describing a very different scene, and the “wildness” of it appealed to me to be just suited to a scene of the Wilderness and the wigwam.

It will not surely be deemed a very great stretch of “poetic license” to represent oneself as an eye- and ear-witness of a scene, with the surroundings of which he was so familiar, and which had been so vividly described by those who really were present.

Nor need we speculate about the cause of dreams or their significance. No one will deny that they may be a very exact index of the state of mind at the time, of the one who dreams. And the earnest prayer of the writer, is, that the reader of these verses, and himself, may be, at the time of our departure, so full of joy and peace in believing, that whether waking or dreaming, we may “rejoice with that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls.”

Silas T. Rand.

Hantsport, N. S.