60 HISTORT OF 



or when Colonel French and Henry Worley, went on a 

 message in 1710, was present, and preached a sermon to 

 the Indians at Conestogo, in which sermon he set forth 

 original sin, tlie necessity of a mediator, and endeavored, 

 by certain arguments, to induce the Indians to embrace 

 the christian religion. After he had ended his discourse, 

 one of the Indian chiefs made a speech in reply to the 

 sermon : the discourse on both sides was made known by 

 interpreters. The missionary, upon his return to Sweden, 

 published his sermon and the Indian's answer; having 

 written them in Latin, he dedicated them to the University 

 of Upsal, and desired them to furnish him with argu- 

 ments to confute such strong reasoning of the Indian. — 

 The Indian's speech, translated from the Latin, is as 

 follows : 



"Since the subject of his errand is to persuade us to em- 

 brace a new doctrine, perhaps it may not be amiss, 

 before we offer him the reasons why we cannot com.ply 

 with his request, to acquaint him with the grounds and 

 principles of that religion he would have us abandoiL 

 Our forefathers were under a strong persuasion (as we 

 are) that those who act well in this life, will be rewarded 

 in the next, according to the degree of their virtues. — 

 And on the other hand, that those that behave wickedly 

 here will undergo such punishments hereafter as were 

 proportionate to the crimes they were guilty of. This 

 has been constantly and invariably received and ac- 

 knowledged for a truth through every successive genera- 

 tion of our ancestors : it could not then have taken its 

 rise from fable ; for human fiction, however artfully and 

 plausibly contrived, can never gain credit long among 

 people where free enquiry is allowed, which never was 

 denied by our ancestors; who, on the contrary, thought it 



