The Indians who have been converted to the Protestant religion, are settled around their respected pastor at the lower extremity of the settlement, within twenty miles of the mouth of the river.  The Sauteux, of all other tribes, are the most tenacious of their own superstitions; and it would require all the zeal and patience and perseverance of the primitive teachers of Christianity to wean them from them.  But when convinced of his errors, the Sauteux convert is the more steadfast in his faith; and his steadfastness and sincerity prove an ample reward to his spiritual father for his pains and anxiety on his behalf.

The Indian converts are entirely guided by their Missionary in temporal as well as in spiritual things.  When he first came among them, he found their habits of indolence so deep-rooted, that something more than advice was necessary to produce the desired change.  Like Oberlin, therefore, he set before them the example of a laborious and industrious life; he tilled, he sowed, he planted, he reaped with his own hands, and afterwards shared his produce with them.  By persevering in this, he succeeded in finally gaining them to his views; and, at the present moment, their settlement is in as forward a state of improvement as any of the neighbouring settlements.

They have their mills, and barns, and dwelling-houses; their horses, and cattle, and well-cultivated fields:—­a happy change!  A few years ago, these same Indians were a wretched, vagabond race; “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the other settlers, as their pagan brethren still are; they wandered about from house to house, half-starved, and half-naked; and even in this state of abject misery, preferring a glass of “fire-water” to food and raiment for themselves or their children.

There are at present three ministers of the episcopal communion at Red River.  The Scotch inhabitants attend the church regularly, although they sigh after the form of worship to which they had been accustomed in early youth; they, however, assemble afterwards in their own houses to read the Scriptures, and worship God after the manner of their fathers.  There are also three Roman Catholic clergymen, including a bishop;—­good, exemplary men, whose “constant care” is not “to increase their store,” but to guide and direct their flocks in the paths of piety and virtue.  But, alas! they have a stiff-necked people to deal with;—­the French half-breed, who follows the hunter’s life, possesses all the worst vices of his European and Indian progenitors, and is indifferent alike to the laws of God and man.  There are, in all, seven places of worship, three Roman Catholic, and four Protestant, including two for the Indians.