Among the Sioux | Page 3

said the rumseller, "is a people for whose souls nobody cares. They are utterly destitute of moral and religious teachings. No efforts have ever been made by Protestants for their salvation. If you fellows are looking, in earnest, for a hard job, there is one ready for you to tackle on those bleak prairies."
This man's description of the terrible condition of the Sioux Indians in those times was fairly accurate. Those wild, roving and utterly neglected Indians were proper subjects for Christian effort and promised to furnish the opportunities for self-denying and self-sacrificing labors for which the brothers were seeking.
Mr. Pond at once recognized this peculiar call as from God. After prayerful deliberation, Samuel determined to write to his brother Gideon, inviting the latter to join him early the following spring, and undertake with him an independent mission to the Sioux.
He wrote to Gideon:--"I have finally found the field of service for which we have long been seeking. It lies in the regions round about Fort Snelling. It is among the savage Sioux of those far northern plains. They are an ignorant, savage and degraded people. It is said to be a very cold, dreary, storm-swept region. But we are not seeking a soft spot to rest in or easy service. So come on."
Despite strong, almost bitter opposition from friends and kinsmen, Gideon accepted and began his preparations for life among the Indians, and in March, 1834, he bade farewell to his friends and kindred and began his journey westward.
Early in April, he arrived at Galena, equipped for their strange, Heaven-inspired mission. He found his brother firmly fixed in his resolution to carry out the plans already decided upon. In a few days we find them on the steamer's deck, moving steadily up the mighty father of waters, towards their destination. "This is a serious undertaking," remarked the younger brother as they steamed northward. And such it was. There was in it no element of attractiveness from a human view-point.
They expected to go among roving tribes, to have no permanent abiding place and to subsist as those wild and savage tribes subsisted. Their plan was a simple and feasible one, as they proved by experience, but one which required large stores of faith and fortitude every step of the way. They knew, also, that outside of a narrow circle of personal friends, none knew anything of this mission to the Sioux, or felt the slightest interest in its success or failure. But undismayed they pressed on.
The scenery of the Upper Mississippi is still pleasing to those eyes, which behold it, clothed in its springtime robes of beauty. In 1834, this scenery shone forth in all the primeval glory of "nature unmarred by the hand of man."
[Illustration: SAMUEL W. POND, 20 Years a Missionary to the Sioux.]
[Illustration: GIDEON H. POND, For Twenty years Missionary to the Dakotas.]
As the steamer Warrior moved steadily on its way up the Mississippi, the rich May verdure, through which they passed, appeared strikingly beautiful to the two brothers, who then beheld it for the first time. It was a most delightful journey and ended on the sixth day of May, at the dock at old Fort Snelling.
This was then our extreme outpost of frontier civilization. It had been established in 1819, as our front-guard against the British and Indians of the Northwest. It was located on the high plateau, lying between the Mississippi and the Minnesota (St. Peters) rivers, and it was then the only important place within the limits of the present state of Minnesota.
While still on board the Warrior, the brothers received a visit and a warm welcome from the Rev. William T. Boutell, a missionary of the American Board to the Ojibways at Leach Lake, Minnesota. He was greatly rejoiced to meet "these dear brethren, who, from love to Christ and for the poor red man, had come alone to this long-neglected field."
A little later they stepped ashore, found themselves in savage environments and face to face with the grave problems they had come so far to solve. They were men extremely well fitted, mentally and physically, naturally and by training for the toils and privations of the life upon which they had now entered. Sent, not by man but by the Lord; appointed, not by any human authority but by the great Jehovah; without salary or any prospects of worldly emoluments, unknown, unheralded, those humble but heroic men began, in dead earnest, their grand life-work. Their mission and commission was to conquer that savage tribe of fierce, prairie warriors, by the two-edged sword of the spirit of the living God and to mold them aright, by the power of the Gospel of His Son. And God was with them as they took up their weapons (not carnal but spiritual) in this glorious