legitimate means of securing themselves against want, and lying only a defence against discovery and loss.
When the pleasing ceremonies of the Catholic religion were introduced, giving them under certain restrictions the right of appeal to a superior intelligence and power, who would have compassion on their sufferings if they conformed to requirements which their reason showed them to be just, they seized willingly and even joyfully upon the prospect. After practising these forms for several years with remarkable constancy, and finding themselves better off than before, inasmuch as they were more at peace with each other, and enjoyed further the pleasures of human society and intercourse with something beyond the reach of the senses, the race from which they understood this beneficial religion to be derived began to make its appearance among them.
The first feeling that is awakened by the contact of the two races is covetousness. There are men who have everything desirable, and pretend to what they persist in calling the devil's gift, the knowledge of good and evil. The Indian wished to steal, to take these things at once, as soon as he saw them or learned their use; but was restrained by fear of the consequences.[1] Then came to him in this dilemma the offer of knowledge, which he immediately seized upon as a legitimate means to the end he coveted, the possession of property. The offer of knowledge was accompanied by the tender of a new religion; but to that no objection was made. What they knew of the white man's religion was good; why should more of it harm them? If it made the others wise, powerful, and rich, why not adopt it? Thus there was no difficulty
- ↑ Rev. Thomas Condon, at the Dalles, going away from home with his family, left a domesticated native in charge of his house. Returning, he found his servant sitting outside the house, shivering in the cold; and on asking him why he did not remain by the comfortable fire, was told that the temptation of seeing so many useful and desirable things, together with the opportunity of appropriating them, had been so tormenting to him, that he had voluntarily banished himself from their presence rather than take them and subject himself to the consequences.
