But will the mother give up the last of her children? it matters not now where she lives, but she must part with husband or child!  Self has no part in her schemes; secure in her trust in God she yields up her child to her friend, and listens not to the suggestions of those who would induce her to remain where she would still enjoy the comforts of life.  Nothing should separate her from her husband.  “Entreat me not to leave thee; where thou goest I will go, where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried.”

And as the Dahcotah woman inquires of the justice of God, the faces of her children rise up before her—­first in health, with bright eyes and lips parted with smiles, and then as she last saw them—­their hands white to transparency, the hue of death upon their features; the shrouds, the little coffins, the cold lips, as she pressed them for the last time.

The Dahcotah looked in astonishment at the grief which for a few moments overcame the usual calmness of her kind friend; and as she wondered why, like her, she should shed bitter tears, she heard herself thus addressed—­

“Do not think that you alone have been unhappy.  God afflicts all his children.  There is not a spot on the earth which is secure from sorrow.  Have I not told you why?  This world is not your home or mine.  Soon will our bodies lie down in the earth—­and we would forget this, if we were always happy.

“And you should not complain though your sorrows have been great.  Do not forget the crown of thorns which pressed the brow of the Saviour, the cruel nails that pierced his hands and feet, the desertion of his friends, his fear that God his Father had forsaken him.  And remember that after death the power of those who hated him ceased; the grave received but could not keep his body.  He rose from the dead, and went to Heaven, where he has prepared a place for all who love him; for me and mine, I trust, and for you too, if you are careful to please him by serving him yourself, and by endeavoring to induce your friends to give up their foolish and wicked superstitions, and to worship the true God who made all things.”

CHAPTER II.

The Dahcotahs believe in the existence of a Great Spirit, but they have very confused ideas of his attributes.  Those who have lived near the missionaries, say that the Great Spirit lived forever, but their own minds would never have conceived such an idea.  Some say that the Great Spirit has a wife.

They say that this being created all things but thunder and wild rice; and that he gave the earth and all animals to them, and that their feasts and customs were the laws by which they are to be governed.  But they do not fear the anger of this deity after death.

Thunder is said to be a large bird; the name that they give to thunder is the generic term for all animals that fly.  Near the source of the St. Peters is a place called Thunder-tracks—­where the footprints of the thunder-bird are seen in the rocks, twenty-five miles apart.