The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-10-06

congregation uhlted III Singing hymn 40.
''soldiers of Christ, ariseg'
to the air of Laban.
Rey. Daniel March, D. D., of Woburp,
Mass, led in prayef-cosing, as yesterday
morning, with the Lords Prayer, in which the
congregation audibiy united. It was very
impressive devotional service.
The records of the proceedings Of the Board
on the previous day, were read by the Re cord
ing Secretary, Rev. II. A. Stimson, of Worces-
ter, Mass.
The response to thu greetings of the Oneida,
Chenango and Delaware Association, was as
follows
The American Board thanks you for your precious
assurances. IT. grateful for your past devotion
and you for the future. Pray with for the
baptism of the spirit ON all the churches, all the
fields, and all the workers.
Portland Me, Oct. 4th. 1882.
Ry S. G. Bartlett, D. D.. President of
Dartmouth College, chairman of the commit
/ g on the Dakota Mission. reported on their
behalf.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE.
The subject is fone of considerable interest
and one which calls for prompt action, but it is
not vet in a condition to decide precisely what
that action shall be. The Dakota mission is
the last external link. which connects this
Board with certain precious memories of the
mast. And our thanks are due to the Secre-
tary who has SO fully and so uccinctly gathered
up these memories for the enlightenment of
the present generation.
It is well for us to learn that even the pres
ent attitude of the government towards the
Indian tribes is to very considerable extent
MISUNDERSTANDING that from before the
Supreme Court of the United States inter-
posed the righteous authority in behalf OF our
missions in Georgia, though baffied by local
interests and excited passions of the day, the
wron % of the Indian tribes have been dine,
partly indeed to mistake in the original re-
lations as treaty relations, but still more to a
Encouragement of the agents of the govern
ment, than to its fundamental policy.
But especially we are thankful for clear
and emphatic showing, that the American
Board SO far from being delinquent in efforts
for the heather at home, began its history with
plans and labors for the Indians, and that
it has operated in more than twenty tribes,
employed among them more thar thousand
missionaries and teachers organized more than
fifty churches and gathered between four and
five thousand communicates, and that the
work once engaged the deepest personal in
terest of the Secretaries and called forth the
profound enthusiasm of the churches.
We are thankful for the clear presentation,
so slow of reception among our churches and
80 ignored by the world, that no heather have
responsive to the gospel than the Aborigines
of America. We trust that great hopeful
ness of Christian labor among the Indian
trbes-except SO far as interfered with by
selfish and wicked white men.-an6 the actual
success of the effort both to christianiZe and to
civilze them, will at length be so thoroughly
impressed upon the whole country that the
notorious maxim, ''No good Indian, but a dead
Indian shall be remanded to the heartless
heathenism from which it spraDg.
Tho inu,1irpc of the VISITING EopnOai{fan of
which the special Report before US is the
fruit and the condensation, seem to have
been thoroughly prosecuted, under the most
comprehensive and careful instructions. They
show us but about $4,000 Indians-Dakotas-
now remaining properly within the province
of this Board and these partly reached by
another Board; and in educational matters
partly provided for by the government: these
$4,000 in various stages, shading off from the
conditions fairly to be called evangelised and
civilized, into one of savage degradation.
The Santee and Sissiton Stations, belong
properly to the cherishpg influences of the
Home Missionary Society, while those at Fort
Berthold and Sully ARE essentially pagan field
And yet it would seem as though the natural
bond that binds them together should not
be rudely sundered in their Gaze and destiny.
This constitutes one objection to trans
ferriDg part only to another Board.
At first thought the present enrolment of
the Santee and Sissiston churches with the Pres
bvterian might seem to point IN that direction.
But that connection was formed at a time
when two communions at the West were but
one, the New England element being simply
stamped with Presbyterian impress; they are
now largely environed with congregational
churches and that this mission, in a respect
full communication to the Prudential Com
mittee express their preference for Copgrega-
tional connection.
And your committee cannot but feel an earn
est desire not to sever the cord that bind New
England to the earliest objects and trophies of
its missionary zeal, but to retain If possible the
remnant of this noble work in charge OF an
organization as closely allied as may be to the
chief constituency OF our churches.
In the posture of things Providence seems to
have interposed a new possibility. The Amer
lean Missionary Association has at the last
moment made overtures to take the mission as
awhole, turning over in lieu of it, its own
African works to the Board. The scheme
would draw the definite line of placing the
whole colored population of this country-or
rather our share of it, in charge of the Ameri-
can Missionary Association; while that asso-
citation, from the nature of its plan, can natur-
ally bring all the stages of the Dakota enter
prise within its legitimate purview.
We would not however undertake to pre-
scribe to body of men whose province and
privilege it is to understand all the circumstan-
ces of the case better than we. Doubtless
there are practical difficulties in the plan And
we would not embarrass the Prudential Com
mittee in their endeavor to do the very best
as made known to us in the paDers laid before
us we would leave the matter in the hands OF
that committee with the ex Tession only of a
strong preference, andswe recommend the adop-
ton of the following resolution:
Res0laed-That failure arrangements for the
Dakota mission be referred to the Prudential
Committee with powers, but with the earnest
recommendation that the whole mission be
transferred to the care of the American Mis-
sionary Association unless the practical diff
hall IN, hof por1 10
Mr.. Bartlett's speech for the committee was
as follows:
Address of President s. c. Bartlett
We naturally feel great interest in this
single strand which is left of the golden
cord which binds us to the efforts and the
successes of this missionary body. The Da-
kota mission is the last remnant of the ear.
lier influences that called out the faith and
the prayers and the efforts of that band of
Gideon which in its early days were neither
fearful nor faintshearted. From that
time dates the enthusiasm that poured it.
self forth in prayer for the perishing mil
lions and in a sympathy that followed the
heroic sacrifices and self-denlals of the early
missionaries, that rejoiced in the triumphs
of the divine grace among the aborigines of
America, and that followed them with
fearful interest in that forced march
Wnert Iney were literally like sheen for
the slaughter, from their original homes
across the Mississippi. 1t binds us to the
times from whence came down that first.
or almost first, precious legacy of her who
from the earnings of fifty cents week could
leave to this Board hundreds of dollars to
help on our work for the future, to which
time date, think, most of these legacies
that are now tiding us over the hour of our
relative Indifference. And it sometimes
seems to me, as listen to these statements
of figures showing us how much of the work
now done is not done by the living, but by
the dead; when read in the statement OF
the treasurer that of this $651 900 which
have been expended in our work for the
past year, only $34S, 000-scarcely more than
one-half-were the contributions of the living
while therest has come down from the dead
l feel almost that if this work goes
on, we that live may soon count ourselves
among the dead. 1t seems as though, in the
inspiration of that past work, that SO pro-
foundly stirred to their Utmost souls thosethat
began this goodly work, we are called upon
to revival of the missionary cause in our
own hearts, in the midst of the churches
that we represent here to-day. We look
around upon the audiences, which assemble