150 EXPEDITION TO THE 



school will soon be increased to one hundred. The plan 

 adopted appears to be a very judicious one ; to instruct them 

 in the arts of civilized life, to teach them the benefits which 

 they may derive from them, without attempting to con- 

 fuse their heads by ideas of religion, the value of which it 

 is in their present state, impossible for them to appreciate. 

 It is only after they shall have been f3.miliarized with the 

 blessings attendant upon civilization, that they may be in- 

 duced to turn, with effect, their attention to the sublime 

 principles of that dispensation to which we are indebted 

 for all those comforts. To attempt to christianize them before 

 they have been civilized, would be to expect of them a matu- 

 rity of reasoning far beyond that of which experience teaches 

 us that they are possessed. In his present state of a\ ildness 

 and ignorance, it is impossible for the Indian to appreciate 

 the vast difference which exists between his heathen su- 

 perstitions and the pure morality of the gospel. Could we 

 entertain a doubt of what must strike every reflecting man 

 as true, we need but open the books of the Catholic mis- 

 sionaries whose zeal first induced them to visit the track- 

 less wastes of America, to ascend her as yet unknown 

 rivers, and to risk every hazard and surmount every ob- 

 stacle, conveying the glad tidings of the gospel and bap- 

 tising in the name of the Lord. What say they of their 

 success, they were heard with patient attention, for such 

 is the practice of the Indian, but what root did their words 

 strike in the minds of their pupils? Father Hennepin, one 

 of the most celebrated of these missionaries, has accounted 

 for their ill success in the true way. "There are," says he, 

 " several obstacles to the conversion of the Indians, but in 

 most cases the chief difficulty arises from the indifference 

 which they manifest for every thing. If we instruct them 

 in the creation of the world, and in the mysteries of the 



