one of whom lives on the plantation.  Among these he would see four, five, six, or possibly ten persons with colored skins; not but one male among them, belonging to the church.  He would probably think he had made a mistake, and that he was in a white town, and not among the Indians.  He might then go to the house of blind Joseph, (the colored Baptist preacher,) or to the School-house in Marshpee, and he would there find twenty, thirty, or forty Indians, all engaged in the solemn worship of God, united and happy, with a little church, growing in grace.  He might then visit the other School-house, at the neck, where he would find William Apes, an Indian, preaching to fifty, sixty, or seventy, and sometimes an hundred Indians, all uniting in fervent devotion.  After the sermon, he would hear a word of exhortation from several of the colored brethren and sisters, in their broken way, but which often touches the heart of the Indian, more than all the learning that Harvard College can bestow.  He would hear the Indians singing praises to God, and making melody in their hearts if not in their voices.  What would he say then, when told that Harvard College had paid twelve thousand dollars of his funds for converting the poor Indians, to the white minister, who had made twenty members in twenty-four years, while the two Indian preachers, with forty-seven members to their churches, added in three years, were like St. Paul, laboring with their own hands for a subsistence?

All the Indians ask of Harvard is, take away your pretended gift.  Do not force upon us a minister we do not like, and who creates divisions among us.  Let us have our Meeting-house and our land, and we will be content to worship God without the help of the white man.

This Meeting-house might as well be in India as in Marshpee, for all the benefit the Indians have of it.  It is kept locked all the time, with the key in Mr. Fish’s possession.  It is seen that he would not let the Baptist church of Indians have it to ordain their beloved pastor, blind Joseph in, and we see how it was granted to the Indians, when they wanted it for Mr. Hallett to address them last summer.  Not only were we forbidden the use of the Meeting-house, but even the land which the Legislature unconstitutionally as we think, took from the Indians to give to Mr. Fish, is considered by him too holy to be defiled by the Indians, who are its true owners.

Last summer, sometime in July, my church desired to have a Camp-meeting, of which we had had one before, attended, as we believe, with a great blessing.  We selected a spot some distance from the Meeting-house, in a grove, beside the river; but though not in sight of the Meeting-house, it was on the ground which Mr. Fish thinks has been set apart for his sole use.  After the notice was given of the Camp-meeting, I received from Mr. Fish the following note, which is here recorded, as an evidence of the Christian spirit with which a church in Marshpee consisting of thirty-five members, who were Indians, was treated and molested in their worship, by the missionary Harvard College has paid so liberally to “convert the poor Indians,” and who had but five Indians in his church, not one being a male member.