body and soul, our own countrymen: perishing too from disease,
starvation and intemperance, and all the evils incident to their unhappy
condition. White men, Christian men, are driving them back; rooting out
their very names from the face of the earth. Ah! these men can seek the
country of the Sioux when money is to be gained: but how few care for
the sufferings of the Dahcotahs! how few would give a piece of money, a
prayer, or even a thought, towards their present and eternal good.

Yet are they not altogether neglected. Doctor Williamson, one of the
missionaries among the Sioux, lives near Fort Snelling. He is exerting
himself to the utmost to promote the moral welfare of the unhappy people
among whom he expects to pass his life. He has a school for the Indian
children, and many of them read well. On the Sabbath, divine service is
regularly held, and he has labored to promote the cause of temperance
among the Sioux. Christian exertion is unhappily too much influenced by
the apprehension that little can be done for the savage. How is it with
the man on his fire-water mission to the Indian? Does he doubt? Does
he fail?

As a great motive to improve the moral character of the Indians, I
present the condition of the women in their tribes. A degraded state of
woman is universally characteristic of savage life, as her elevated
influence in civilized society is the conspicuous standard of moral and
social virtue. The peculiar sorrows of the Sioux woman commence at her
birth. Even as a child she is despised, in comparison with the brother
beside her, who is one day to be a great warrior. As a maiden, she is
valued while the young man, who wants her for a wife, may have a doubt
of his success. But when she is a wife, there is little sympathy for her
condition. How soon do the oppressive storms and contentions of life
root out all that is kind or gentle in her heart. She must bear the