Some twenty years ago he became a professor of religion, and the ennobling influences of Bible truth have mellowed, and devoted to the most unselfish and exalted aims his natural determination and enthusiasm of character.  God has promised to his people “that their righteousness shall shine as the light, and their just dealing as the noonday.”  Protected in such an impregnable tower of defence from the strife of tongues, Mr. Schoolcraft has been enabled freely to forgive, and even befriend, those narrow-minded calumniators who have aimed so many poisoned arrows at his fame, his character, and his success in life.  These are they who hate all excellence that they themselves can never hope to reach.

Mr. Schoolcraft’s persevering industry is so indomitable, that he has been known to write from sun to sun almost every day for many consecutive years, taking no recreation, and yet these sedentary habits of untiring application being regulated by system, have not impaired the digestive functions of his usually robust health.  One of his family remarks, “that she believed that if his meals were weighed every day in the year they would average the same amount every twenty-four hours.”  He has, however, been partly lame for the last two years, from the effects, it is thought, of early exposure in his explorations in the west, where he used frequently to lie down in the swamps to sleep, with no pillow save clumps of bog, and no covering but a traveling Indian blanket, which sometimes when he awoke was cased in snow.  This local impediment, however, being entirely without neuralgic or rheumatic symptoms, has had no effect whatever upon his mental activity, as every moment of his time is still consecrated to literary pursuits.

In 1841 he removed his residence from Michilimackinack to the city of New York, where he was instrumental, with Mr. John R. Bartlett, Mr. H. C. Murphy, Mr. Folsom and other ethnologists, in forming the American Ethnological Society—­which, under the auspices of the late Mr. Albert Gallatin, has produced efficient labors.  In 1842 he visited England and the Continent.  He attended the twelfth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Manchester.  He then visited France, Germany, Prussia, Belgium, and Holland.  On returning to New York he took an active interest in the deliberations of the New York Historical Society, made an antiquarian tour to Western Virginia, Ohio, and the Canadas, and published in numbers the first volume of an Indian miscellany under the title of “Oneota, or the Indian in his Wigwam.”

In 1845 the Legislature of New York authorized him to take a census, and collect the statistics of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, which were published, together with materials illustrating their history and character, in a volume entitled, NOTES ON THE IROQUOIS.

This work was highly approved by the Legislature, and copies eagerly sought by persons taking an interest in the fortunes of this celebrated tribe.  Contrary to expectation, their numbers were found to be considerable, and their advance in agriculture and civilization of a highly encouraging character; and the State has since made liberal appropriations for their education.