1December 1993 2 3 Setting the Foundation for the Settlement and 4 Civilization of the Indians of Western Canada 5 6 ========================== 7 8 Extract from 9 10 11 HAVING in the preceding chapter pointed out some of the errors and 12 defects in the missionary plan for civilizing and evangelizing the 13 Indians, and its almost universal failure, we proceed now to offer 14 some practical suggestions, the adoption of which would greatly 15 improve, as we think, the existing system, and facilitate the work of 16 salvation. Without presuming that the plans we propose are suitable, 17 without change, for universal application, we have long been satisfied 18 that the course proper to be pursued among heathen tribes generally, 19 many with some obvious alterations be applicable here, due attention 20 being paid to the natural state of the people to be evangelized. 21 The first point to which we would more particularly call 22 attention is the union of temporal and spiritual matters, which, as we 23 have shown by examples sufficiently marked, ought not to be under the 24 management of the same individual. This reform makes the preparatory 25 part of our plan, which places the heathen, while he learns the first 26 step of civilization, entirely under secular guidance; except, perhaps 27 occasional visits from the clergy. In this way the first moral 28 restraints would be imposed on the savage, who would learn the value 29 of order and subordination without alarm to his prejudices. It is the 30 method which reason dictates, and experience enforces; but it is the 31 one which, above all others, will excite the spirit of opposition, and 32 we well know what arguments will be used, and the changes that will be 33 rung upon them. Matt. xxviii 19, 20. 34 In fact, the writer has vainly urged the consideration of this 35 plan, both on Protestant and Catholic clergymen, who all condemned it 36 from the text cited above. 'We must,' said they, 'preach the Gospel 37 to every creature.' But how then does it come to pass, we might ask, 38 as we have asked them in conversation, that you clergymen do not obey 39 this positive command, and preach the Gospel to every creature? You 40 have been located on the spot in question for the last thirty years; 41 why not have preached the Gospel during all that time to 'every 42 creature?' You have not, so far as the heathen is concerned, preached 43 to a tenth, a hundredth part of those around you! You have 44 established missions on your own plans, as we have already noticed, 45 and what has been the result? At this hour, the Indians are running 46 as wild as ever in their native woods and prairies, nay, even in the 47 settlement, and around your dwellings, and dying on every point, 48 without the least regard to their lost state. Our assembling, 49 locating, and training the, as proposed, cannot entail more guilt on 50 the dying, or deprive them in any greater degree of the means of grace 51 than your present system. If your arguments are worth anything, how 52 are you justified in waiting till we locate the Indians, according to 53 the plans you wish to dictate? Why not, in obedience to the divine 54 command, go to their camps, their dwellings, and 'preach the Gospel to 55 every creature' now? Why wait till (London: 1856), Chapter XX. 582 =========================