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ADDRESS OF REV.  THOMAS L. RIGGS.

It was said of Dr. Williamson by an old Indian that he had an Indian heart.  I, too, have an Indian heart, and I can lay claim to that possession as but few can.  It would take but a very little while to go from here into the very midst of our present Indian field.  It took my father and Dr. Williamson, when they first entered the field, some six months to reach it.  I could start to-morrow morning, and taking the cars in this city, and reaching Pierre by the following night, could be farther off by Saturday, farther from the border of the mission field, than my father and Dr. Williamson could after they had travelled six months.

I would like to invite you to go with me on a tour of inspection of the mission field itself.  I would take my two ponies and drive out to the Cheyenne River, and take you to one of our out-stations, and show you something of the influences at work in the field to-day.  As we went up the valley, we would see the Indian village located there, and in the midst, on a rising piece of ground, the mission station.  Over some of the houses we would see a red flag flying.  That is a prayer, a votive offering; there are sick in that house, and that is a prayer to the gods that healing may come, and that death may be kept from them.  Over on the right we would see the dance-house—­a great octagonal house with an open roof, in which the Indians gather night after night to dance to the monotonous beating of the drum.  That is a very common sound out in the Indian villages, bringing to us always that thought of slavery to evil.  As we go up to the station itself, we would see something more of the work than you have as yet been able to see.  If it be on the Sabbath, as we go in we would see a young man there, with his audience before him, not a very large audience—­old men, old women, boys and girls—­gathered on the rough benches, and very much as they are in their own homes.  Some of the old women have their hair down over their faces, the boys with dirty hands, old men with their dirty blankets, and yet they are gathered around there to hear the word of life.  The preacher, as he stands before them, tells them of God’s wonderful love, and takes as his text that most wonderful verse in the Bible, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”

Then, as you look at the man who is preaching there, you would hardly recognize in him one who thirteen years ago was a savage, a painted Indian.  As I look at him it seems a most wonderful thing that such a change has taken place.  I knew him as a savage; a splendid fellow he was, and he is now a more splendid man than ever he was a savage; and he is teaching the gospel of Christ to his own people.  I have been out there seventeen years, and if there were not another result to show for those seventeen years of work than the lifting up of this Clarence Ward, and making of him a man in Christ Jesus, I should be abundantly satisfied.