owners of our soil for more than two and one-half centuries, and yet,
today, there are sixty tribes who have no knowledge of Jesus the
Christ? Shall we allow longer such a stain? I know well the pressure
of various claims in religious work at home and abroad, but in the
light of what has been said, is not the duty of Christianizing the
Indians a debt of honor, a "preferred claim," which should take
precedence over others? In this way only can we partially atone for
our "century of dishonor."

The history of the past few months, and the famous order with regard
to the use of the vernacular, ought to arouse the church to new
efforts. The probable instigators of it are known to friends of the
Indian, and it shows the necessity of increased activity on our part.
The order was despotism itself, and would have done credit to a
Russian Czar. It was a blow aimed at the Indian's highest religious
interests, and the President of the United States, instead of
explaining and translating it, should have recalled it as an act
unworthy of Christian civilization in the nineteenth century.
Everything is still done to hamper the Protestant missionary work.
The A.M.A. has a theological school, and the Government allows (?) it
to teach a theological class; but, when the students are chosen and
ready to come, the Government agents prohibit their coming. We have a
young man who has been waiting for a year for a permit from
Washington. The same obstructive policy meets us when we try to get
pupils under the Government school contracts. And even after we have
obtained the order from the Government to procure the pupils from a
given agency, the Government will, at the same time, instruct the
Agent to let no pupils go till the Government schools are full. In
this way the Christian Indian parent has taken from him the right to
send his child where he desires, for the Government stops his rations