TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. 



255 



follow him in this rite ; at least for some time. 

 And the Heathen nations being in the practice 

 of offering sacrifices, furnishes no argument 

 against us. For sacrifices had been offered by 

 the progenitors of all the nations from the be- 

 ginning, and were not at all peculiar to the 

 ceremonial code. All Heathen nations then, 

 derived this their practice from their remote 

 ancestors. — But when we now find the Ame- 

 rican Indians in the conscientious practice of 

 many of the ceremonial laws in Israel, and 

 cautiously maintaining those traditions, merely 

 because they descended from their remote an- 

 cestors ; we certainly have strong evidence to 

 prove that they are the descendants of ancient 

 Israel : and, however many difficult questions 

 may attach themselves to the subject, they are 

 all less difficult than to account for the origin 

 of these traditions on any other principle than 

 that the Indians are descended from the an- 

 cient people of God — -were all originally of one 

 language, and came over by Bhering's Straits, 

 in which several Islands are situated, and 

 through which there is an easy passage from 

 the north-east of Asia, to the north-west of 

 America.' 



In February 1826. I set off in a horse sleigh, 

 the usual mode of travelling in winter, for 



