St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-10-05
THE DIE MEssIAH.

There is something pathetic in the
story which comes from the Indian res
ervations of the Northwest, and which
tells of the anxious waiting of the untu-
tored children of the forest and the
prairie for the coming of their Messiah.
The medicine men of the tribes have in
dOctrinated the Indians with the belief
that when the leaves bud again their
Shiloh will come TO deliver them from
the expressions of the white man.
They have been taught to believe that
when the dellverer IN a stream of
mud shall be poured over the face of
the earth, which will deluge the white
race as the Red sea did the Egyptians;
but the Indians will come to the sur
face alive to find their hunting grounds
restored to them, and that all the plains
shall be peopled with buffalo and with
wild game as they were before the
white man robbed them of their lands.
In anticipation of this glorious event,
the Indians have lost interest in all
other matters, and are congregating in
their towns to celebrate the coming of
their deliverer by the usual weird meth
DDS or expressing savage delight.
This idea of a-MeSsiah in some form or
other is found in e~verysystem ofreligious
thought that ever existed. In the pagan
idolatry of the ancients was the conf.
dent expectation that the gods would
descend to the earth to dwell among
men in some glorious future time. of
which they had no definite idea. The
Jew of to-day is just as confident of the
future coming of his Deliverer as was
the first man ADAM when it was told to
him that the heel of the woman's seed
should bruise the serpent's head. The
Christian world, the disciples of
BUDDHA. the followers of MAHoMET,
all rejoice in the blessed real
ization of their prophetic dreams.
1t is no wonder. then. that the
Indians, in their d~own-trodden and OPP
pressed condition, should allow hope to
expand into faith in INDUCING the idea
that there is yet a Messiah for them,
who shall redeem them from their low
estate. However benighted their in
tellectual faculties, and however OBJ
scured their moral vision, we can readily
understand how hard it is for the
remnant of a race who were once
the masters and the sole owners of a
continent to reconcile themselves to the
fact that they are about to be obliter-
ated from the face of the earth, and are
to go down to the dreamlesS sleep
which has sometimes overtaken nations,
but has never yet fallen to the lot of a
distinct race of human beings. Why
the Indian should have been singled out
from all the races who have peopled this
earth is II of the mysteries beyond
human comprehension. If, with our
intelligence, we cannot comprehend
why it shall be SO, we can readily I'M
derstand how the unlettered Indian
does not believe it to be a possibility.
Their pride of race, and that superb
independence of character which has
always been the foremost trait of In
dian nature, stimulates the faith that is
now in them, that the Great Spirit has
reserved them for his chosen people,
and that in the fullness of time he will
give them the North American CONT
nent for their undivided possession.
We say there is a touching pathos in
the contrast between the Indians faith
and the stern facts which confront
him. Notwithstanding his failure to
recognize the truth. his harp has been
hung on the willows forever. There is
no millennial dawn to bring It's rays of
comfort to the Indian race. Instead of
bringing a Shiloh on their wings, the
zephYrs of spring will chant a sad re-
quiem over the poor Indians last rest
ing place. 1t was a cruel fate which
decreed their extinction, and a still
more cruel governmental policy which
has scarcely left them a burying
ground.