come to inspire or retain confidence in the minds of the missionaries concerning religious forms and ceremonies, or even preaching, as an uplifting force to the Indian, I shall not try to conjecture, for, being an outsider, probably I do not place as high an estimate upon them as do the sectarians. Whatever they may think, or however they may try to console themselves that their labors were not in vain, though really impotent to ameliorate in any appreciable degree the Indians' social condition, the world's people will credit them with hastening the red brother towards the vanishing point. The belief is common that civilization is poison to the Indian, and Christianity is reckoned as part of civilization. Be that as it may, the subject is worthy of investigation by some one conversant with the missionary work in Oregon and Washington, to show how and why the observable results are so little in correspondence with the claim of the conservative influence of Christianity.
Likely, no more devoted servant of his Master ever lived and labored than the Rev. Cushing Eells, who spent his long life in traveling on horseback, preaching and teaching among the Nez Perces and neighboring tribes of Indians in Eastern Washington, and while it is irrational to suppose that his ministrations could be other than beneficial to the lowly people with whom he labored, the question is often asked, "Does it pay?" "Are the visible results commensurate with the outlay?" Enthusiastic Christians may answer in the affirmative and that the gathering of a few Indians into the fold of the faithful is sufficient reward. Others will say that the life service of such a man as Cushing Eells was worth more than that to the white race. Still, every one must decide for himself as to how his life shall be spent, whether in pursuit of knowledge or of wealth; whether in working to bring about adjustments in the environment to advance his own selfish satisfaction, or pursuing a broader and more liberal purpose of including with his own the general welfare; or still further away from selfishness and actuated by a sense of duty or altruistic impulse, seeking, like Livingston, Eells and others, to carry the gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brother-
