The
instructed youth is soon discouraged, and they most commonly fall back
into habits worse than before, and end their course by inebriety, while
the body of the tribe is nowise bettered. Whatever the defects are,
there are certainly some things to amend in our measures and
general policy.
Mr. Stevens and Mr. Coe, both missionaries, have recently been appointed
to visit the Indian country, with the object of observing whether some
less expensive and more general effort to instruct and benefit the body
of the tribes, cannot be made. The latter has a commentatory letter to
this end, from Gen. Jackson, dated the 19th of March, which denotes an
interest on this topic that argues favorably of his views of
moral things.
"The true system of converting the Indians was, it is apprehended,
adopted by David Brainerd in 1744. He took the Bible, and declared its
truths with simplicity and earnestness in the Indian villages. There was
no preparation of buildings or outlays. In one year he had gathered a
church of pure believers.
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