The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1872-08-30
THE JOURNAL.
From the Standard of the Gross.

SOAAO 'pOhNNAS3 OAOuSh
not a politician, sends us this week
q letter of a more political character
than we care to publish in these col
umns. The following passages,
however, dictated in that Christian
spirit which rises abo Te mere parti,
politics, we print in the interest of
justice and humanity, just as we
printed Mr.. Welsh's report on the
same subject. Our church has be-
gun to take so lively an interest in
the Christianization of the Indian
tribes, that we ought to welcome the
assistance Of the civil authority,
whether in other directions harmo-
nizing with us in political issues or
not:
81 p Iss to that other memorable
conflict and reform, in which General
Grant has achieved a still more sig
nal success, and a still more singu-
lar claim u Don the gratitude of the
Christian people Of this land. I
mean the Obstruction of the Indian
Ring, and the Discrimination of a
service in which Grant found cur
ruption at once as loathsome, as po-
tent and as cruel-I say it not pro-
fanely, but solemnly-as hell. The
merchandise ofthat diabolic combi-
nation was the honor of Christian
nation, the bodies and souls and ev-
cry hope of the wild red orphans in
our charge, the peace of the frontier,
the lives of our soldiers and settlers.
the chastity of our women and the
blood of our children. Year by year
all these were hurled and spent to
winds over the Plains, to glut the
accursed greed Of men, creatures of
political corruption, who represented
our government with the Indians
only to plumber and debauch them,
excite their savage natures to savage
reprisals. To the politician mind
all this was a deplorable but una
voldable incident of politics, and
thus it had remained and strengthen
ed from Administration to Admins
tration. No politician ever dreamed
of the possibility of overthrowing
the Indian Ring. The last idea, as
suredly, that would have occurred to
| a politician or an ordinary man of
the world, or that being suggested
would have been received with res
pect, was to call upon the churches
of Jesus Christ for representatives
of their Master to go as agents OF
the United States to the Indian
tribes!
s'I call that act unique in history,
and as grand as it is unique, Iwish
that one of the pious statesmen of
whom Christians sometimes boast,
had ever shown some of Grants
simple faith in goodness and in God.
I cannot remember anything like it
in the best of them. Few, 1
suppose, know anything of the force
and tenacity of the two-years' con
flict that ensued before the mighty
Indian Ring, interlocked with the
political combinations in Washing
ton and the West, succumbed to the
Christian policy and l must say
Christian like heroism of General
Grant. But in view of what has
been here imperfectly cited if there
be any American who ever thanks
God for anything, who will not de-
voutly thank God for General Grant
and deVoutly ask for more of the
same sort, or who will deny that his
Christianization Of four Indian policy
is of itself sufficient to clothe his
presidency with pre-eminent lustre,
and to command the Jealous aid of
every good man, if there be
such christian, l say I do not know
how to put myself in his place. My
fellowship for that sort of Christian
citizen is too remote and hypotheti-
cal to be worth rendering. Nor do
l believe there is much Of that sort,
from what 1 know of religious men,
in the enlightened part of the land.
''I have no room left to touch up
pon other great merits of the Admin
istration, which conspire with the
above to render it in my most seri-
GUS judgment second in no sense to
the best in our history. No Pres
ident in our time at least, l am con
fident, has to any like extent given
place to the personal influence of
distinctively religious men in the
informal counsels of his administra-
ton. 1t is hardly necessary to
specify such names as George H.
Stewart, Bishop Simpson, Gen. o. o.
Howard, and many Of like character,
to say nothing Of your own Delano
and others in the Cabinet and in
other high places Of trust and hon
or, who have been socially or infu-
ential with this President from the
first. :"