Among the Sioux | Page 9

Christ went on. It was pushed vigorously at every mission station from Lac-qui-Parle to Red Wing and from Kaposia to Hazelwood. Great progress was made in these years. And such a work!
The workers were buried out of sight of their fellow-white men. Lac-qui-Parle was more remote from Boston than Manilla is today. It took Stephen R. Riggs three months to pass with his New England bride from the green hills of her native state to Fort Snelling. It was a further journey of thirteen days over a trackless trail, through the wilderness, to their mission home on the shores of the Lake-that-speaks. Even as late as 1843, it required a full month's travel for the first bridal tour of Agnes Carson Johnson as Mrs. Robert Hopkins from the plains of Ohio to the prairies of Minnesota. It was no pleasure tour in Pullman palace cars, on palatial limited trains, swiftly speeding over highly polished rails from the far east to the Falls of St. Anthony, in those days. It was a weary, weary pilgrimage of weeks by boat and stage, by private conveyance and oft-times on foot. One can make a tour of Europe today with greater ease and in less time than those isolated workers at Lac-qui-Parle could revisit their old homes in Ohio and New England.
Within their reach was no smithy and no mill until they built one; there was no post office within one hundred miles, and all supplies were carried from Boston to New Orleans by sloops; then by steamboats almost the whole length of the Mississippi; then the flatboat-men sweated and swore as they poled them up the Minnesota to the nearest landing-place; then they had to be hauled overland one hundred and twenty-five miles. These trips were ever attended with heavy toil, often with great suffering and sometimes with loss of life.
Small was the support received from the Board. The entire income of the mission, including government aid to the schools, was less than one thousand dollars a year. Upon this meager sum, three ordained missionaries, two teachers and farmers, and six women, with eight or ten children were maintained. This also, covered travelling expenses, books and printing.
The rude and varied dialects of the different bands of the savage Sioux had been reduced to a written language. This was truly a giant task. It required men who were fine linguists, very studious, patient, persistent, and capable of utilizing their knowledge under grave difficulties. Such were the Ponds, Dr. Williamson, Mr. Riggs and Joseph Renville by whom the great task was accomplished. It took months and years of patient, persistent, painstaking efforts; but it was finally accomplished.
In 1852, the Dakota Dictionary and Grammar were published by the Smithsonian Institute at its expense. The dictionary contained sixteen thousand words and received the warm commendation of philologists generally. The language itself is still growing and valuable additions are being made to it year by year.
Within a few years, a revised and greatly enlarged edition should be, and probably will be published for the benefit of the Sioux nation.
The Word of God too, had been translated into this wild, barbaric tongue. This was in truth a mighty undertaking. It involved on the part of the translators a knowledge of the French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Sioux tongues and required many years of unremitting toil on the part of those, who wrought out its accomplishment in their humble log cabins on the shores of Lakes Calhoun and Lac-qui-Parle, and at Kaposia and Traverse des Sioux, Yellow Medicine and Hazelwood.
But it, too, was completed and published in 1879, by the American Bible Society. Hymn-books and textbooks had also been prepared and published in the new language. Books like the Pilgrims Progress had been issued in it--a literature for a great nation had been created. Comfortable churches and mission homes had been erected at the various mission stations. Out of the eight thousand Sioux Indians in Minnesota, more than one hundred converts had been gathered into the church. The faithful missionaries, who had toiled so long, with but little encouragement, now looked forward hopefully into the future.
Apparently the time to favor their work had come. But suddenly all their pleasant anticipations vanished--all their high hopes were blasted.
It was August 17, 1862, a lovely Sabbath of the Lord. It was sacramental Sabbath at Hazelwood. As their custom was, that congregation of believers and Yellow Medicine came together to commemorate their Lord's death. The house was well-filled and the missionaries have ever remembered that Sabbath as one of precious interest, for it was the last time they ever assembled in that beautiful little chapel. A great trial of their faith and patience was before them and they knew it not. But the loving Saviour knew that both the missionaries and the native Christians