The Indian Bureau, as at present constituted, cannot do for him what he needs.  This is a part of the political machine, and its appointees are selected because they have done good service as ward politicians.  It has been well said that such a Bureau is no more fitted to lead these people aright than Pharaoh was to lead the Israelites out of their house of bondage.

To show how even some good men fail to comprehend the situation is evidenced by the proposed “Morgan Bill,” which in its practical working would give the Indian Agent—­already a despot—­even more power than before.  By that bill he is made chief Judge, with two Indians as associate Judges; and the agent is given power to select the jurors when a jury is demanded.  What a travesty of justice, to make the present agent a judge and give him power to select the jury.  With such a bill the friend of the Indian may well say:  Oh Lord, how long!  We must demand that all Indians, whether on the reservations or not, shall be given full protection of righteous laws, and that the tyrannical methods of the past shall forever cease.

But, with the solid ground of the Dawes bill beneath, and the further protection of the judiciary certain to be given at no distant day, he needs, more than all else besides, the Christian school and the Christian church.  He now has “Land.”  If we are earnest and persistent he will soon have “Law.”  But, most of all, does he need “Light,” and that light which is from above.  All the laws we may enact the next hundred years will not change the character of a single Indian.  To a considerable extent he is a superstitious pagan still.  He needs Jesus Christ.  He needs to learn the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.  As it is a part of the Indian man’s religious belief that his god does not want him to work and he will be punished if he does, it is especially necessary to touch his religious nature first.  When he accepts the Christian’s God, then he will be ready to go to work for himself.  The taking up of the hoe and the spade is his first confession of faith.  What has already been accomplished through the new laws giving him his civil rights, puts an added responsibility upon the church.  It is the Indian’s last chance.  Our further neglect is his certain death.  Shall we leave him with his “Land and Law” without God?  Do we realize that we have lived with these original owners of our soil for more than two and one-half centuries, and yet, today, there are sixty tribes who have no knowledge of Jesus the Christ?  Shall we allow longer such a stain?  I know well the pressure of various claims in religious work at home and abroad, but in the light of what has been said, is not the duty of Christianizing the Indians a debt of honor, a “preferred claim,” which should take precedence over others?  In this way only can we partially atone for our “century of dishonor.”