life in the other world.

A further opportunity is to be noted in the fact that the Dakota Indians
have specially fallen into our care. Our chief missions are located
among them, at Santee, Rosebud, Oahe, Standing Rock, and outlying
stations. But the Dakota Indians number 40,000 in all, or about
one-sixth of all the Indians in the country. We have mastered the Dakota
language; and a Bible, hymn-book, dictionary and other books are printed
in that tongue. We have, then, special ability to carry on mission work
among them, and are bound to utilize it to the full. The time is ripe
for immediate action. It must be taken without delay if taken at all.
The opening up to white settlement of a large strip of land though the
center of the great Sioux reservations is to bring the Indian into
contact with the influence of white men as never before. It is
impossible that that influence shall be altogether good. The contact of
the Indian with the frontiersmen of our own people has resulted most
deplorably in the past, and we cannot hope for much better results now.
Rum and licentiousness are sure to work untold harm to the Indian unless
they are met by the gospel. This opening up of Indian territory to white
settlement lays, therefore, a most imperative and immediate obligation
on Christian people to protect the Indian from ruin by giving them the
gospel.

We are satisfied that nothing but the gospel will suffice. Education
alone can not save, and may simply give new strength to evil habits and
influences. It must be a Christian education; schools should be simply
preliminary and altogether subsidiary to the most energetic and wise
presentation of the gospel. The uniform policy of the American
Missionary Association in all departments of its work has been in this
direction, and we gladly recognize the fact that its Indian work has