rous character. He was endowed with uncommon intelligence, frankness, generosity and courage. He had been particularly acquainted with Reverend AIr. De la Croix," one of the first Catholic missionaries that visited that part of the West, and conceived for him and his colleagues, the
" Black-robes," profound esteem. His feelings toward the Protestant missionaries were far different. He had neither esteem nor veneration for them or their reforma
tion. When on a certain occasion one of them spoke to him of conversion; " conversion," said the unsophisticated savage, " is a good thing when the change is made for something good. For my part, I know none such but what is taught and practiced by the Black-robes. If then you desire me to change, you must first quit your wife and then put on the habit I shall show you, and then we shall see further." This habit was a priest's cassock, which a missionary had left him with the memory of his virtues. We presume we need not acid that these hard conditions were not complied with by the preacher.
It is not to be inferred from the apparent pleasantry of this remark that the chief spoke lightly of religion; on the contrary, the Kansas, like all the Indian tribes, never speak on the subject without becoming solemnity. The more they are observed the more evident does it become that the religious sentiment is deeply implanted in their souls, and is, of all others, that which is most frequently expressed by their words and actions. Thus, for instance, they never take the calumet, without first rendering some homage to the Great Spirit. In the midst of their most infuriate passions they address him certain prayers, and even in assassinating a defenseless child, or a woman, they invoke the Master of life. To be enabled to take many a
to Charles De la Croix, born in 1792 in Flanders: came to America in 1817. Besides filling a number of posts for the Society in the west, he made two sojourns among the Osage Indians as missionary. He returned to Ghent in 1839 and died August 2o, 1869.