foot: It irritates them to have to leave the land -of their birth, where the ashes of their fathers repose.
Let me tell you, brethren, a story related by Lord Erskine, the celebrated Scottish lawyer. An American Governor, in quest of Indian lands, once asked the chief of a certain tribe, " Tell me: why is it, that this river bas its source in those lofty mountains. and cornes down to empty into the sea? Who is it that puts in motion these furious winds which rage in winter, but blow with only a feeble breath in summer ? What hand planted the century-old trees of your forests, so thick that the sun's rays cannot penetrate them ? Tell me, what is this mysterious power that launches the thunderbolt and is able to put the whole world ablaze ? Who is the author of these wonders ? " " It is the saure Supreme Being," the Indian replied, " who gave you the vast lands on which you live on the other side of the water; but he it is also who had made us masters of the land we dwell in and which you covet; it is he who caused us to be born here, and it is under this title that we shall defend our homes." When he had said thus, the savage brandished his tomahawk and struck up with enthusiasm his nation's hymn of war.- Such, my brethren, are the sentiments by which the savages of our America are animated. Let us not judge thern too severely, and let us see to it that we are just toward them. Let us remember that one of the effects of Christian civilization is to make the human heart incline toward forgiveness.
A remarkable fact, brethren, in the annals of the Catholic Church, is this; the conversion of rude and uncultured peoples has always been due to the zeal of our missionaries. Look at the Indians of South America, of Canada, and the savages of other countries; they have been led away from their sensual and barbarous habits to a clean, regular and peaceable life, by apostles like Father De Smet. It is the bright beams from the Cross that have dissipated the darkness of error and vice which had hitherto enveloped these degraded populations; it is the preaching of the gospel that