TRIBUTE TO A NOBLE LIFE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 89, 9 January 1875, Page 11

TRIBUTE TO A NOBLE LIFE.

<-+ Thp following article from the ' N. Y. Times,' is an interesting and seasonable testimony to a devoted Jesuit missionary : —

A little more than fifty years ago a small band of Jesuit missionaries came from Belgium to America, with the avowed purpose, of devoting their lives to the conversion of the Indians of the Plains to the religion of Christ. Under the leadership of Father de Smet, one of the most noted men produced in the nineteenth century by the famous order, they began their ministrations among the Indians of Missouri River, and gradually extended them throughout the Northwest, until, in 1840, Father de Smet had penetrated to Oregon, where his labors were attended with great success. The tiny band of zealots, free from the temptations of the world, remote from|the field of politics, where ambition might have whispered in their ears, led lives of heroic self-sacrifice, and by constant examples of dignified and holy conduct did incalculable good among the savage tribes. Year by year they finally dropped away, and were buried in humble graves ; and now the last but one has succumbed, full of .years and good works. Father Helias, who died last week ' at Taos, Mo., and whose funeral is shortly to be held in St. Louis, was the first Catholic priest who celebrated Mass west of St. Louis, and for thirty-five years was a hardy laborer among the savages on the plains between St. Louis' and Kansas City. His memory will ' be tenderly cherished by all the people of the State, whatever their belief, for he was truly a man of God, and his half -century of toil ' was crowded with daily heroisms. Ere, this gentle and faithful man passed away, must he not often, as he sat bowed down beneath the weight of his fourscore years, have looked with wonder upon the mighty flood of material progress which followed him in hiß journey to the West, paused and struggled for a little with the many obstacles along the Mississippi's banks, and then swept resistlessly in a broad current toward the Pacific shore, pushing aside into nooks and corners every agency which dared for an instant to dispute its passage ? One can imagine the astonishment with which Father Helias contemplated the Kansas City of to-day, if, perchance, he visited it ; or his amazement at the mighty metropolis on the banks of the Father of Waters, with its population of almost half a million inhabitants, with its hundreds of streets, and thousands of shops, on the spot where, when he entered Missouri, stood a petty trading town, but poorly protected against hostile Indian incursions. No one of the Jesuit band had dreamed of any such colossal progress when he set foot on the western bank of the Mississippi ; and if the good Fathers De Smet and Helias had, at that time, been told that in half a century the Northwest and Southwest would be covered with a labyrinth of iron rails, over which the peoples of the Old World would be swiftly conveyed to new homes, they would have declared that nothing save a miracle could bring it about. And could they have foreseen the summary manner in which the tribes to whose well being they devoted their lives were to be scattered before the relentless march of the white men, they could hardly have repressed a sigh at the thought of the fate awaiting the red man.

It is possible that Father Helias might have given the American people of to-day a few practical ideas upon the Indian question. A good lesson might be learned from the touching and beautiful record of the many years which he spent among the Missouri Indians, before the advent of railroads and land speculators drove them out of the State. It might be wise to train them up in the civil service to-day to do very much what Father Helias and his fellows did when they went among the Indians. They took with them neither rifles nor whisky ; they did not pass their days and nights in consummate struggle for the accumulation of wealth; but they strove heartily and honestly to make of the Indian a real Christian. They taught his children in schools ; they made efforts to group tribes into permanent communities, and to teach them to till the soil, ,and to husband the fruits of their labor. They endeavored to wean the savage from the coarse delights of treachery and stratagem by subduing their baser passions, and by arousing them to a sense of duty in life. Their method may not have been completely successful, but it does not suffer by comparison with that of the average Indian Agent of to-day. If the General Government ever succeeds in keeping the Indians contented and peaceful upon limited reservations, it will be done only after expelling from I their midst the thievish and vicious white men, who are already | too numerous among them. We are not inclined to be sentimental over the noble red man, or to deny that he needs to be under the absolute control of of the officers of the army, who alone seems to understand how to police the reservations and to punish the wicked and dangerous tribes ; but we are confident that the gentle policy and benificent example of such men as Father Helias, and those -who came from Belgium with him half a century ago, will, in conjunction with strict military discipline, be powerful for good. When every Church in our country sends sorth to the Indian reservations men like De Smet and Helias, the army will have less to do, and the Indian question will approach its solution. ' The active service of the army will be necessary as long as Kickapoos, and Indians of that ilk, exist, but soldiers will never have the time nor the power to teach the savages the lessons which many of them learned from the long years of patient toil given on their behalf by Father Helias. We should like to know what the venerable Jesuit thought of the modem Indian Agent, and his influence on the aborigine.

J. Eoxas an Indian of Santa Cruz, California, 122 years of age, has sent his photograph to the Pope.

Boys under 15 years of age are not allowed in the streets of Vallejo, after eight at night, a prohibition worthy of imitation, in other cities.