United States or Gibraltar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the West Indies they had established congregations in St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Jan, Jamaica and Antigua. In Berbice and Surinam they had three main centres of work. Among the Red Indians Zeisberger was busily engaged.
To think of poor Kate! Ah! he intends the same for me!" Suddenly she fell upon the floor in a faint. Mr. Wells and Jim lifted her on the bed beside Edwards, where they endeavored to revive her. It was some moments before she opened her eyes. Jim sat holding Nell's hand. Mr. Wells again bowed his head. Zeisberger continued to whittle a stick, and Heckewelder paced the floor.
As the missionaries of the early Christian Church came to our rude fathers in England, and made us a Christian people, so Zeisberger desired to be an Augustine to the Indians, and found a Christian Indian kingdom stretching from Lake Michigan to the Ohio.
"Listen, Heckewelder, you must remember we had this to go through once before," put in Zeisberger earnestly. "In '78 Girty came down on us like a wolf on the fold. He had not so many Indians at his beck and call as now; but he harangued for days, trying to scare us and our handful of Christians. He set his drunken fiends to frighten us, and he failed. We stuck it out and won.
At times, in order to bring down the vengeance of the spirits on Zeisberger's head, they sat up through the night and gorged themselves with swine's flesh; and, when this mode of enchantment failed, they baked themselves in hot ovens till they became unconscious. Zeisberger still went boldly on. Wherever the Indians were most debauched, there was he in the midst of them.
At Lavunakhannek, on the Alleghany River, he met the great Delaware orator, Glikkikan, who had baffled Jesuits and statesmen, and had prepared a complicated speech with which he meant to crush Zeisberger for ever; but when the two men came face to face, the orator fell an easy victim, forgot his carefully prepared oration, murmured meekly: "I have nothing to say; I believe your words," submitted to Zeisberger like a child, and became one of his warmest friends and supporters.
We are just coming to the reason. At the very time when his influence was at its height the American War of Independence broke out, and Zeisberger and his converts, as an Indian orator put it, were between two exceeding mighty and wrathful gods, who stood opposed with extended jaws. Each party wished the Indians to take up arms on its side. But Zeisberger urged them to be neutral.
He raised the sufferer's shoulder to find the bed saturated with blood. The bullet wound extended completely through the missionary's body, and was bleeding from the back. Zeisberger folded strips of linsey cloth into small pads and bound them tightly over both apertures of the wound.
As these contributions to science were never published, they may not seem of much importance; but his manuscripts have been carefully preserved, some in the library of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, others at Harvard University. Thus did Zeisberger, explorer and scholar, devote his powers to the physical, moral and spiritual improvement of the Indians.
Never had they sung so feelingly, so harmoniously. When the song ended Zeisberger, who stood upon a platform, opened his Bible and read: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer." In a voice low and tremulous the venerable missionary began his sermon.
Word Of The Day