thing they can lay their hands on!' Strange, thought we, that the Government should send out a thieving Christian soldiery to exterminate thieving Indians. It is the old Bible story and practice of the Israelites going into the lands of Canaanites and Moabites to pillage and destroy. Our Christianity is galvanized Judaism; and our political policy, greedy for power and pelf, winks approval at the most horrid injustice. Whither are we drifting?

"Gov. Crawford of Kansas recently issued a proclamation savoring little of the tender, loving, forgiving spirit of Jesus,— good for evil, love for hate, blessing for cursing. Here follows the closing paragraph:

"Longer to forbear with these bloody fiends would be a crime against civilization, and against the peace, security, and lives of all the people upon the frontier. The time has come when they must be met by an adequate force, not only to prevent the repetition of these outrages, but to penetrate their haunts, break up their organizations, and either exterminate the tribes, or confine them upon reservations set apart for their occupancy. To this end the Major-General commanding this department has called upon the Executive for a regiment of cavalry from this State.'

"Mark the phrase, bloody fiends,' and the executive threat of extermination,' if they are not forced on to reservations!

"A professed Spiritualist of Lawrence, in a tongue-battle with us touching the solution of the Indian question, exclaimed, 'I would to God that every one of those Indian Peace Commissioners (among which were Gens. Sherman, Harney, Augur, Terry, and others) was obliged to go out on the plains, and be scalped by the red-skins!' Are such sentiments in accordance with the genius of Spiritualism? Would it not be wisdom in Spiritualist lecturers to devote more time to educating and spiritualizing thousands of nominal Spiritualists, rather than encompassing sea and land to make new converts, who, when converted, often need re-converting every six months by a fresh batch of tests? Quality is often preferable to quantity."

The next winter, Mr. Peebles, lecturing in Washington, D. C., was invited to a position as volunteer in the "Congressional Indian Peace Commission," consisting of Gens. Harney, Sheridan, Sherman, Sanborn, Taylor, Col. Parker, and Col. S. F. Tappan,- to visit the Indians, then fighting with the whites in the Sioux and Rocky Mountain regions; for the purpose of organizing treaties, stopping the shedding of blood, and befriending them in their natural rights to a living on the American continent. He gathered up the testimony of Senators Doolittle, Foster, Nesbith, Sherman, Gen. Pope, and others, who averred, that, if the facts of the whites' rascality to the Indians "were published to the world, they would disgrace us in the eyes of all civilized nations." He quoted from the speeches of Indian chiefs, asking for justice; talked with W. P. Ross, chief of Cherokees, and other educated Indians, who demonstrate their capacity to be civilized; consulted John Beeson, the Indian's friend; and, with burning words, said, in an editorial of The Banner of Light:·

Is

"Our Saxon face is mantled with shame, and soul humbled in deepest humiliation, at the individual and associate crimes that blot the escutcheon of this great, wicked Christian country, called United States of America. Crimes red as blood, vindictive as death, and black as the cinders of Pluto's pit; crimes willful, determined, and continuous too, against the Indian tribes of the West, Northwest, and Southwest! justice, is philanthropy, dead? Is progress a dream? and sympathy a mere historic legend? Our heart aches; our tears flow. God, angels, American citizens of the better thought and life, tell us what we can, what we ought, to do to check this nation from further cheating, swindling, sacking, shooting, slaughtering, and murdering, through its officers, superintendents, and agents, the three hundred thousand remaining aborigines of this country? A government is responsible for the agents it employs and pays. In this country the people, with ballot in hand, are the government: accordingly you, readers, directly or indirectly, are possible for the defrauding and murdering of those red men west of the Mississippi.

"This Indian question is all the more grave at present from the consideration that the two waves of population between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts are soon to meet. Way-stations will dot Western mountains. A railroad will span the extremes, and a peaceable transit through these mountainous regions will be indispensable. The only way to secure such will be by the exercise of blended justice and kindness,kindness and sympathy, not revenge; love, not hate; mercy, not vindictiveness; integrity, sincerity, and peace; deeds of purity and fraternity, rather than murderous acts of extermination.

"William Penn had no difficulty with the Indians. They knew know their friends. The English government in Canada has never had an Indian war, nor has a life been lost by an Indian massacre. They live in peaceful relations with their white neighbors. Tribes have centered into Indian villages, around which the grass is green, and orchards bud, bloom, and bear their fruitage.

"Our government must give those three hundred thousand Indians the protection of law; must give them a civilrights bill; must treat them as men; must give them individual and permanent right in the soil; must grant them their annuities, and guard them against thieving agents, trafficking vagabonds, and a murderous soldiery: for they are God's children, and our brothers. This course pursued, and a continuous peace is secured with our red brothers of the West,— brothers originally noble in nature, firm in their friendships, and keen in their perceptions of the principles of natural justice.

"Though treated as they have been by the whites, those that tread the shadow-lands of eternity are returning good for evil by descending from their hunting-ground homes in the heavens, with balms of healing, and words of love and cheer. Hours, days, months, in the past, have we talked with Powhattan, through the organism of a medium friend, relative to the past, present, and future of the Indians upon this continent. 'Tis only justice to say, we have ever found this

chief the very soul of simplicity, tenderness, truthfulness, and a genuine magnanimity. Blessings be upon Powhattan, Red Jacket, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Thunder, Logan, Little Crow, Osceola, Antelope, and all Indian spirits that are shedding their healing magnetisms and peace-influences upon the inhabitants of earth."

In April, he started with these commissioners for the Far West. This is an extract from an editorial reporting his experiences:

"In Dakota Territory, near the confluence of the north and south forks of the Platte, we were privileged to sit with the Commission in an Indian Council. It was a novel scene, and every movement deeply interesting. The first glance at the Brule Chief Spotted Tail,' the sub-chiefs and warriors. present, inclined us to silently exclaim, 'What splendidly molded forms! How dignified their bearings! These are truly men of health and of muscle; men of very large perceptive faculties, and magnificent noses, the Roman prevailing.' The tip-up and stub-noses that disfigure so many Hibernian faces characterize the features of none of the eighty thousand Sioux. The Cheyennes and Sioux are the enemies of the Pawnees. They fight at times very much like Christians.

"At the preliminary meeting the more prominent of the tribe, dressed in native costume (fancy colors as in our fashionable female society predominating), came in, decorated in beads, bones, buffalo-teeth, and glittering ornaments,such as coils of brass wire, bands of silver upon their arms, and feathers in their hair, together with a long string of circular metallic pieces, graduated in size, and fastened to a leather strap attached and suspended from the back hair like a Chinese queue. The length of this is proportionate to an Indian's wealth and bravery, and furthermore, indicates a sort of challenge. Thus adorned, they extended fraternal greetings, through the interpreter, to the Commissioners, Father De Smet, a Catholic priest, and others present. A general running talk then followed.

"At twelve o'clock, the Council met the Commissioners fronting a rude table, interpreters and reporters at the sides, and the Indians in circular form. Spotted Tail, Little Thunder, and White Eyes, facing Gen. Harney, Gen. Sheridan, Col. Tappan, and the others, formed the inner circle. Back of the chiefs were the warriors; and behind these, in half-moon form, a large number of women and children. Having filled a huge pipe with yellow willow-bark and other ingredients, the Indians passed it from one to the other, each taking a whiff. It was the famous pipe of peace. All becoming quiet, Mr. Sanborn, acting chairman of the Commission, stated the purpose of the present mission from Washington, and further peaceable aims of the Government toward the red men of the Western plains and mountains.

"Sanborn having closed his pleasant remarks, Spotted Tail, sitting a while in perfect stoic silence, at length replied, through Leon F. Pallarday, an interpreter twenty-two years in the Indian country. The speech, moderate, distinct in enunciation, and full of gestures, showed great practical common sense and sound thought mingled with much native shrewdness. He said in substance: ·

"We are glad to meet the representatives of the great father in Washington. I remember the talk we had together last year. I have kept my word; neither my old warriors nor young braves have fought the white man since. I have been just and kept my word. I have tried to make the chiefs of the bands to the north understand that peace was better for all parties than war. I want peace; for all of us are brothers, and the Great Spirit smiles upon us all in sun and stars alike. My daughter loved the whites, and is buried among them at Fort Laramie. I like peace. Our forefathers are dead. Their hearts were broken. My old men and squaws like peace the best. I have unstrung my bow, broken my arrow, laid aside the war-paint, and felled trees across the war-trail.

"Your great father must be rich, or he could not build the long fiery trail, and send his braves so far to our council. We are poor; our pappooses' hearts cry with hunger. White men have killed some of our chiefs, destroyed our game,