Here I will copy some remarks made by a discerning observer, on the methods used by the missionaries, and their natural results.

“Mr. ——­ and myself had a very interesting conversation, upon the subject of the Indians, their character, capabilities, &c.  After ten years’ experience among them, he was forced to acknowledge that the results of the missionary efforts had produced nothing calculated to encourage.  He thought that there was an intrinsic disability in them to rise above, or go beyond, the sphere in which they had so long moved.  He said, that even those Indians who had been converted, and who had adopted the habits of civilization, were very little improved in their real character; they were as selfish, as deceitful, and as indolent, as those who were still heathens.  They had repaid the kindnesses of the missionaries with the basest ingratitude, killing their cattle and swine, and robbing them of their harvests, which, they wantonly destroyed.  He had abandoned the idea of effecting any general good to the Indians.  He had conscientious scruples as to promoting an enterprise so hopeless as that of missions among the Indians, by sending accounts to the East that might induce philanthropic individuals to contribute to their support.  In fact, the whole experience of his intercourse with them seemed to have convinced him of the irremediable degradation of the race.  Their fortitude under suffering he considered the result of physical and mental insensibility; their courage, a mere animal excitement, which they found it necessary to inflame, before daring to meet a foe.  They have no constancy of purpose; and are, in fact, but little superior to the brutes in point of moral development.  It is not astonishing, that one looking upon the Indian character from Mr. ——­’s point of view should entertain such sentiments.  The object of his intercourse with them was, to make them apprehend the mysteries of a theology, which, to the most enlightened, is an abstruse, metaphysical study; and it is not singular they should prefer their pagan superstitions, which address themselves more directly to the senses.  Failing in the attempt to Christianize before civilizing them, he inferred that in the intrinsic degradation of their faculties the obstacle was to be found.”

Thus the missionary vainly attempts, by once or twice holding up the cross, to turn deer and tigers into lambs; vainly attempts to convince the red man that a heavenly mandate takes from him his broad lands.  He bows his head, but does not at heart acquiesce.  He cannot.  It is not true; and if it were, the descent of blood through the same channels, for centuries, has formed habits of thought not so easily to be disturbed.

Amalgamation would afford the only true and profound means of civilization.  But nature seems, like all else, to declare that this race is fated to perish.  Those of mixed blood fade early, and are not generally a fine race.  They lose what is best in either type, rather than enhance the value of each, by mingling.  There are exceptions,—­one or two such I know of,—­but this, it is said, is the general rule.