The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-22
suppKEssINe THE BIBLE.
The Presidents Order Regarding Religious
Instruction to Indans.

The Presidents Order Regarding Religious
Instruction to Indians.
New York Mail and Express
1t is new business for the government Of
this country to undertake to suppress the Bible;
and no administration that ever existed in this
country, until the present one, ever ATTEMPTED,
facts in the are briefly these: An order
was issued by the Commissioner OF Indian Af-
fairs rigidly and positively forbdding the CIV
ing of instruction in the Indian languages in any
Indian school, and threatening to close every
school maintained at private expense
ton. On tho I'd of November last depu-
tation representing the American Bible
Society. the Presbyterian Mission Boards, tho
ton, the Board of Missions of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. the Methodist Missionary So
ciety and the Board of Indian Commissioners
waited upon the President and had an interview
in which the situation was clearly set forth. Tho
delegation was received in such manner as to
authorize a hope that the obnoxious order
would at least be modified, if not rescinded.
But on JAM IS the Indian Commissioner issued
an additional order which afirms the previous
one.
This order means not only that all instruc-
ton in the Indian language shall be discontinued
in Indian schools which receive government aid,
but that no Indians shall be allowed to receive
any instruction, religious or other, In their own
language, in any school whatever. As the cir
cnlar Of the Bible Society well puts it,
Bishop Hare must not teach his catschumens to
az IA eexs5ooI the version Of the Bible which his
father prepared with much patience and scholar
board the Ten Commandments expressed in any
words his Indian boys have heard in
printed page the written words under the Of
the United States government Its edict is. Thou
shalt not teach Indian boy to read word in his
in his order. dated Jan. Is, 1888. "other than
tive Indian teacher will be permitted to teach
Indian vernacuar; and these native teachers will only
be allowed in schools not supported in whole or in
part by the government at remote points where there
government or contract schools where the
English language Is taught.
There 10 scarcely another country on earth
where missionaries forbidden officially to
teach the Bible in the native tongue; and for
of the most remarkable things that has hap
pened in the nineteenth century.
1t is to be supposed, OF course. that Mr..
Cleveland did not know what he was doing
when he attempted to suppress the Bible. He
is the kind of man who can by no stretch of inn
agination understand the feelings of those who
believe in the Bible.
Without ethical principle. without any trace
Of imagination, without the least touch Of
patriotic impulse, he has alike regarded the bat
tie Gags OF the nation as useless lumber and tho
Bible of our ancestors as a sectarian book, the
use OF which is TO be suppressed by the whole
weight of Nthe atonal authority wherever gov
eminent interference can be brought to bear
upon it. Such a moral Sachyderm has never
before disgraced the high Office of President Of
the United States, aud if know anything
about the sentiment of the vast ruling class in
this country, he will never be permitted to dis
grace it for a second term.
In this particular case, 1.-THE wicked partner"
dodge cannot be played The responsibility is
clearly and Enthusiastically the President The
delegation to which we have alluded stated the
case to him personally. with all the weight that
should come from the representatives of SO many
religious bodies, and from the presence of one Of
the oldest and most respected justices of the SUI
preme Court of the United States No evasion
shutting will answer to shift the burden to
tho shoulders of the Indian Commissioner.