mooneyJ SPEKCH OF YOWALUCH 753 



" A good Christian man prayed w ith me four days. After four days, a voice said 

 ti> me, 'You shall live on earth four weeks.' My soul was told that they must 

 build a church for me in four weeks. I had lumber for a house, and my friends built 

 church. Had it all done in four weeks but 6 feet of roof, and spread a mat over 

 that. Soon as the church was finished the people came and filled the house and 

 began to worship God. I felt strong — bigger than today — all these men know 

 this. My friends worked hard, and I am here because they finished the house in 

 four weeks. My soul was told to remain on earth four weeks more. All my friends 

 came, and every .Saturday we worshiped God. In four weeks more my soul was 

 told that I should live on earth four years if I did right and preached for God. All 

 felt thankful, and people joined the church — about fifty people. I was promised 

 more time if we worshiped God. 



"A bad man can't reach heaven. I believe in God. I saw how bad I used to be. 

 God Bends us light to see. They know in heaven what we think. When people are 

 sick, we pray to God to cure us. We pray that he take the evil away and leave the 

 good. If man don't be Christian, he will suffer and see what is bad. When we 

 remember Jesus Christ's name, we always felt happy in our hearts. This is good 

 road for us to travel if we hold on. If we do, God's angels are near to our souls. 

 Power from this to help us. When we pray, it helps us lots in our hearts. We don't 

 do good sometimes, because our hearts are not right. When our body and heart feel 

 warm, we do good and sing good songs. As Christ said, he sends power to every 

 believing soul on earth. 



''While one man can try to start religion here on earth, it don't do much good; 

 they won't believe him much. That's why we join to worship. Now we are pre- 

 paring ourselves for judgment. For it is said, it don't make any difference if he 

 prays good and does good. God gives him help and words to speak. Makes no dif- 

 ference if ' Boston ' or Indian, if God helps we know it. These things are what we 

 learned. We learn good while we pray — voice says, Do good. 



" It is ten years, now, since we began, and we have good things. We all love these 

 things and will follow them all time. We learn to help ourselves when sick. When 

 our friend is sick, we kneel and ask for help to cure him. We learn something once 

 in a while to cure him. Then we do as we know to help him and cure him. If we 

 don't learn to help him, wo generally lose him, 



"This is a pretty accurate synopsis of the speecli delivered to me by 

 Slocum, and translated by another Indian, who spoke pretty good Eng- 

 lish. But that a more thorough knowledge may be given of their reli- 

 gious belief, I give also a brief synopsis of another speech made at the 

 same meeting by Louis Yowaluch, a full-blood Indian, who is the legal 

 head of this church. It is about as follows: 



"Well, my friend, we was about the poorest tribe on earth. We was only tribe 

 now full blood and nothing else. We would not believe anything. Minister came 

 here, but we laugh at him. We loved bad habits — stealing — and John Slocum died. 

 He was not a religious man — knew nothing of God — all of us same. We heard there 

 was a God from Slocum — we could see it. Same time we heard God, we believe it. I 

 was worst of lot. I was drunkard — was half starving — spent every cent for whisky. 

 I gambled, raced horses, bet shirt, money, blankets — did not know any better. 



"John Slocum brought good to us; his words civilized us. We could see. We 

 all felt blind those times. We lost by drowning — our friends drink whisky and 

 the canoes turn over — we died out in the bay. Today who stopped us from these 

 things? 



"John Slocum came alive, and I remember God and felt frightened. We never 

 heard such a thing as a man dying and bring word that there was a God. I became 

 sick for three weeks, four weeks. I hear a voice saying to soul, 'Tomorrow they 

 will be coming to fix you up.' Had just heard about John Slocum, and knew it was 

 punishment for my bad habits. My heart was black — it was a bad thing. 



