From this it may be deduced that missionary work has not been as
thorough as might be hoped. That is true. The Woods Indian loves to
sing, and possesses quaint melodies, or rather intonations, of his own.
But especially does he delight in the long-drawn wail of some of our
old-fashioned hymns. The church oftenest reaches him through them. I
know nothing stranger than the sight of a little half-lit church filled
with Indians swaying unctuously to and fro in the rhythm of a cadence
old Watts would have recognized with difficulty. The religious feeling
of the performance is not remarkable, but perhaps it does as a
starting-point.
Exactly how valuable the average missionary work is I have been puzzled
to decide. Perhaps the church needs more intelligence in the men it
sends out. The evangelist is usually filled with narrow, preconceived
notions as to the proper physical life. He squeezes his savage into log
houses, boiled shirts, and boots. When he has succeeded in getting his
tuberculosis crop well started, he offers as compensation a doctrinal
religion admirably adapted to us, who have within reach of
century-trained perceptions a thousand of the subtler associations a
savage can know nothing about. If there is enough glitter and tin
steeple and high-sounding office and gilt good-behaviour card to it,
the red man's pagan heart is tickled in its vanity, and he dies in the
odour of sanctity--and of a filth his out-of-door life has never taught
him how to avoid.
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