dots, the commencement of which I design to make the subject of some future communication.

At our last Annual Conference, I was appointed to the charge of this District, (Lebanon) in which was included the mission established at that time among the Indians. I appointed to hold a quarterly meeting on the 13th and 14th of November with them, on the head of Mad River, forty-two miles from Upper Sandusky, and twelve from Solomon's town, the chief habitation of this nation. Accordingly on the 13th we met at the place appointed, at which place were convened perhaps sixty Indians, among whom were four Chiefs, whose names are, Between-the-logs, Monnonque, Hicks, and Scuteash, and their families. We had two interpreters, Brother Armstrong, a white man, who was taken prisoner in the year 1780; and Jonathan Pointer, a coloured man, who was taken when small. Both of these have experienced religion since they began to interpret the gospel to the Indians, and are both very happy in the love and enjoyment of God.

We commenced our meeting by singing and prayer, in which the Indians joined. They have learned to sing several of our hymns in English, particularly this, "Jesus my all to heaven is gone," &c. After these exercises, I commenced speaking to them on the providence of God, and our duty to him and one another, and of the necessity of all men, whether white, red or black, breaking off from sin, and seeking mercy at the hand of God. Brother Moses Hinkle concluded with exhortation, all of which, I believe, they perfectly understood by the interpreter. We then joined in singing and prayer: it was a happy meeting to us all.

At candle light we commenced again, and Brother Hinkle showed them that the religion taught them by the Catholics was not according to the Bible-that worshipping departed saints and images, was idolatry, and that God required all men to worship him in spirit and in truth-that doing penance, and confessing their sins to the priests would not save them-that nothing but faith in Christ would save fallen man. The services concluded with singing and prayer. This meeting was made a blessing to many. Nine o'clock on Sabbath morning was ap pointed for our love feast. It commenced with unusual solem nity. I endeavoured to open to them the nature and design of our lovefeast, to which they all gave their ascent with a tone of voice something like our amen. I must say I never saw more solemnity in a lovefeast in my life. We were all bathed in tears, and in the fulness of my heart I cried out, O what hath the Lord wrought. Here are red, and white, and black men, of different nations and languages, sitting together under the Tree of life, partaking of its most precious fruits, and sweetly

bathing their souls in the ocean of redeeming grace and dying love. After we had witnessed our love to God, and our breth ren, in the simple act of taking the bread and water, we proceeded to speak of the feelings and state of our souls. (This was done by an interpreter.) The first that rose as a witness for our holy religion was Between-the-logs, one of the Chiefs. He lifted his eyes toward heaven, streaming with tears of gratitude to God, and after a short pause began as follows-"My dear brethren, I am happy this morning that the Great Spirit has permitted us to assemble here for so good a purpose as to worship him, and strengthen the cords of love and friendship. This is the first meeting of this kind held for us, and now, my dear brethren, I am happy that we who have been so long time apart, an have been enemies to one another, are come together as brothers, at which our Great Father is well pleased. For my part I have been a very wicked man, and have committed many great sins against the good Spirit, and was addicted to drinking Whiskey, and many evils: but I thank my good God that I am yet alive, and that he has more perfectly opened my eyes to see those evils by his ministers, and the good book, and has given me help to forsake those sins, and turn away from them. Now I feel peace in my heart to God, and all men; but I feel just like a little child beginning to walk-sometimes very weak and almost give up; then I pray, and my Great Father hears me, and gives me the blessing: then I feel strong and happy-then I walk again: so sometimes up, and sometimes down. I want you all to pray for me that I may never sin any more; but always live happy, and die happy; then I shall meet you all in our Great Father's house above, and be happy for ever." This speech was attended with power. The next that rose was Hicks, who is the most temperate, and the most zealous man for religion in the nation. His speech was not all interpreted; but brother Armstrong told me, that after expressing his gratitude to God for what he felt, and hoped to feel, he exhorted the Indians to be engaged for the blessing, and urged his exhortation by this argument; that when he was a boy his parents used to send him on errands, and sometimes he saw so many new things that he would say, by and by I will ask, when I have seen this or the other; but after a while he would forget what he was sent for, and have to go home without it: so may you. You have come to get a blessing, and if you do not ask for it, you will have to go home without it: then the wicked Indians will laugh at you for coming so far for nothing. Now seek-now ask, and if you get the blessing you will be happy, and go home light, and then be strong to resist evil, and do good he concluded by imploring the prayers of his brethren. After him Scuteash arose, and with a smiling and serene coun

tenance thus began-"I have been a great sinner, and drunkard which made me commit many great sins, and the Great Spirit was very mad with me, so that in here (pointing to his breast) always sick, no sleep, no eat; walk, walk--drink whiskey then I prayed to the Great Spirit to help me to quit getting drunk, and to forgive me all my sins: and God did do something for me--I do not know from where it comes, nor where it go; but it come all over me. (Here he cried out waugh! waugh! as if shocked by electricity.) Now me no more sick. Me sleep, eat, and no more get drunk--no more drink whiskey -no more bad man. Me cry-me meet you all in our Great Father's house, and be happy forever." After this, we in our turn, told how God had dealt with us, and our morning meeting came to a close.

By this time, I suppose there were three hundred whites gathered from the different frontier settlements. This gave us the opportunity of preaching to them Christ and him crucified, and I have no doubt but it was made a blessing to many. For convenience this day separated the congregation, and held our Indian meeting in a small hut. I tried first to address them by giving them the history of man-his fall-his redemption by Christ, and how Christ was manifested in the flesh-how he came to his own, and they rejected and crucified him; and that he rose from the dead, and was seen of many, and ascended up into heaven-that he commanded his disciples to wait at Jerusalem-and as we are sitting, so were they, when, all at once the Holy Ghost descended like the rushing of a mighty wind, and three thousand were converted in one day. At this they made the whole house ring with waugh, waugh,-great Campmeeting.

A ter this Brother Hinkle and Steward* addressed them, and our meeting, for the present, closed with singing and prayer.

Before our evening meeting commenced, Steward told me that the Indians were determined to pray all night, or obtain the blessing; that it would not do to go home without it, and that it was the wish of the chiefs that I should exhort the white people that were there, and then give them liberty to speak to their people, and ours if they felt free to do it. This being agreed to, after candle light we all met, and after I had given my exhortation, and taken my seat, Monnonque, one of the chiefs rose, and for about forty minutes exhorted his people with great zeal and pathos, if I might judge by his gesture, and the effect it had on them that heard and understood. This was not interpreted; but I was told by Brother Armstrong that the purport was to look to the Lord for the

*Steward is the man of colour, who, under God, has been the principal instrument of this work. He was free born. Can read very well, and write, is a man of a meek and humble mind. He lives with the Indians; and they have the utmost confidence in him.

blessing now. Then he addressed us by the interpreter as follows-Fathers and brethren, I am happy this night before the Great Spirit that made all men, both red, white and black, that he has favoured us with good weather for our meeting, and brought us together that we may help one another to get good, and do good. The Great Spirit has taught you and us both in one thing, that we should love one another, and fear and obey Him. Us Indians he has taught by his Spirit; and you, white men, he has taught by your good book, which is all one. But your book teaches you, and us by you, more plain than we were taught before, what is for our good. To be sure we served our Great Father sincerely (before we were told by the good book the way) by our feasts, rattles and sacrifices, and dances, which we now see were not all right. Now some of our nation are trying to do better; but we have many hinderances, some of which, I mean to tell. The white men tell us they love us, and we believe some do, and wish us well; but a great many do not, for they will bring us whiskey, which has been the ruin of our people. I can compare whiskey to nothing but the devil; for it brings with it all kinds of evil-it destroys our happiness, it makes Indians poor, strips our squaws and children of their clothes and food-makes us lie, steal and kill one another. All these, and many other evils, it brings amongst us; therefore you ought not to bring it amongst us. Now you white people make it, you know its strength and use, Indians do not. Now this whiskey is a curse to yourselves-why not quit making it? This is one argument used by wicked Indians against the good book; if it is so good, why do not white men all do good? An other hinderance is, white men cheat Indians, take away their money, and skins for nothing. Now you tell us your good book forbids all this; why not then do what it tells you? then Indians do right too. Again, you say our Great Father loves all men, white, black and red men, that do right; then why do you look at Indians as below you, and treat them as if they were not brothers? does your good book tell you so? I am sure it does not. Now brothers, let us all do right; then our Great Father will be pleased, and will make us happy in this world, and when we die then we shall all live together in his house above, and always be happy." Then Between-the-logs rose, and desired to be heard-said he, "Will you have patience to hear me, and I will give you a history of religion among the Indians for some time back, and how we have been disappointed. Our fathers had a religion of their own, in which they served God and were happy. Before they were acquainted with white men, they used to worship in feasts by sacrifice, in dances, and by rattles; in the performance of which they thought they were right, (but we now see that they were some of them useless)

and they used to make us do good, and sometimes would whip us to make us good. But a great while ago the British sent us the good book by the Roman priest, and we listened to him— he taught us that we must confess our sins, and that he would forgive them, and that we must worship Lady Mary, and do penance for our sins-he baptized us with spittle and salt, and many of us done as he told us. Now we thought to be sure we were right: he told us to pray, and many used to pray, and carry the cross on our breasts. He told us that it was wrong to drink whiskey; but we found that he would drink whiskey, and then we followed him and got drunk too. At last our priest left us, and this religion died all away. Then we thought we would return to our father's religion; and some of us quit getting drunk, and we began to do pretty well. Then the Shawnee prophet arose, and pretended he had conversed with our Great Father, and that he had told him what Indians ought to do; and we heard, and followed him. To be sure he told us many good things with the bad-he told us it was wrong to drink whiskey; but after a while we found that he was like the Roman priest; he would tell us we must not do things, and he would do them himself: so here we were deceived again. Then we thought our father's religion was the best religion, and we would follow it. After some time then the Seneca prophet arose, and we all heard, and followed him a little while. But by this time we were very jealous, and watched him very close, and found him like our former teachers-so we left him, and were again misled. By this time we began to think that our own religion was a great deal the best, and we made another trial to establish ourselves in it, and had made some progress. Then the war broke out between our father the President, and king George, and our nation was for war, and every man wanted to be big man. Then we drink whiskey and fight, and when the war was ended we were all scattered, and many killed. The Chiefs then thought' that they would try to gather the nation once more, and we had got a good many together---then a black man, Steward, our brother here, came to us, and said he was sent by our Great Father to tell us the good way; but we thought he was like all the rest, and wanted to cheat us, and get our money and land. He told us of all our sins, and shewed us what was ruining us, drinking whiskey, and that the Great Spirit was angry with us, and that we must quit all these things. But we treated him ill, and gave him little to eat, and trampled on him, (so now we' are sure if the Great Spirit had not sent him he could not have withstood our treatment) and was still jealous of him until we had tried him a whole year. About this time our father (the President) counselled us to buy our land, and we had to go to the great city to see him; and when we came home our old preacher was still with us, and he told us the same things, and we