Earlier text: REASON AND FAITHBE YE THEREFORE PERFECT.
By Ellen G. White
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him." There is opened before all Christians a path of continual advancement. They have an object to reach, a standard to gain, which includes everything good, and pure, and noble, and elevating; and they should make constant progress toward perfection of character. The ideal of Christian character is Christlikeness. The religion of Jesus Christ never degrades the receiver, never makes him coarse or rough, discourteous or self-important, passionate or hard-hearted. On the contrary, it refines the taste, sanctifies the judgment, and softens the heart. It purifies and elevates the thoughts, bringing them into captivity to Christ. The living God has given us in his law a transcript of his character, and this law he calls upon us to obey, saying, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." As God is perfect in his high sphere of action, so man may be perfect in his human sphere. The case of Daniel may be studied with profit by all who desire perfection of character. He and his companions were sincere, faithful Christians. To them the will of God was the supreme law of life. They knew that in order to glorify God all their faculties must be developed, and they sought to gain knowledge, that they might perfect a Christian character, and stand in that heathen nation as fitting representatives of the true religion. In order to preserve health, they resolved to avoid the luxuries of the king's table, they refused to partake of any stimulating drink, but practiced strict temperance in all things, that they might not enfeeble brain or muscle. They exerted all their powers to work out their own salvation, and God worked in them to will and to do of his good pleasure. Under his training, their faculties were able to do the highest service for him; and of them it is written: "As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams." When Nebuchadnezzar's golden image was set up on the plains of Dura, Daniel's three companions were commanded to fall down and worship it; but their principles forbade them to pay homage to the idol, for it was a rival to the God of heaven. They knew that they owed every faculty they possessed to God, and while their hearts were full of generous sympathy toward all men, they had a lofty aspiration to prove themselves entirely loyal to their God. These faithful witnesses were cast into the fire for refusing to obey the command of the king, but God manifested his power for the deliverance of his servants. One like unto the Son of man walked with them in the midst of the flame, and when they were brought forth, not even the smell of fire had passed upon them. "Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him." "Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon." Thus these three Hebrew youth, imbued with the Holy Spirit, declared to the whole nation their faith that he whom they worshiped was the only true and living God. This demonstration of their faith was the most eloquent presentation of their principles. In order to impress others with the power and greatness of the living God, his servants must reveal their own reverence for him, making it manifest that he is the only object of their honor and worship, and that no consideration, not even the preservation of life itself, can induce them to make the least concession to idolatry. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and all who live in communion with their Creator, will have an understanding of his design in their creation, and a sense of their own obligation to employ their faculties to the very best purpose. They will seek neither to glorify nor to depreciate themselves, but they will glorify God; for the man who consents to be molded and fashioned after the divine similitude, is the noblest specimen of the work of God. But without the divine working, man can do nothing toward the perfection of his character. God calls every man to repentance; yet man can not even repent unless the Holy Spirit works upon his heart. A principle of divine origin must pervade his conduct, and bind him to God. But the Lord wants no man to wait until he thinks he has repented, before he turns his steps toward Jesus. The Saviour is continually drawing men to repentance; they need only to submit to be drawn, and their hearts will be melted and subdued, fit temples for the indwelling of Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to convince of sin, and to soften hearts hardened by estrangement from God. It comes to reveal the love wherewith God loves us, and the possibilities that open before every believing child of God. But are not some afraid of this heavenly guest? At times it comes with an all-pervading influence, but is it received? Do those to whom it comes bow before God with6 contrite hearts, pleading that they may be prepared to receive the blessings he is presenting to them? I entreat of all to receive this heavenly visitant as an abiding guest; for it will guide you into all truth, and give you joy and peace in the Lord. God calls upon all men to avail themselves of the blessings he has set before them, that they may co-operate with him in carrying forward the great work of redemption. He has given his Holy Spirit as a power sufficient to overcome all man's hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong. By yielding his capabilities to the control of this Spirit, man will be impressed with God's perfect character, and will become an instrument through which he can reveal his mercy, his goodness, and his love. In the attainment of a perfect Christian character, the culture of the intellect is necessary, in order that we may understand the revelation of the will of God to us. This can not be neglected by those who are obedient to God's commandments. In our intellectual faculties, we possess God's endowment. These faculties were not given us for the service of self, but for the service of God; and they are to be treated as a higher power, to rule the things of the body. They are derived from God, not self-created, and should be consecrated to his work. The knowledge which will give the highest culture, is obtained from God's word. The words of revelation, carefully studied, strengthen the intellect as well as the heart. The experimental knowledge of true godliness, found in daily consecration and service for God, gives true culture of the mind, soul, and body. This consecration of our powers prevents self-exaltation; and the impartation of divine power honors our sincere striving after wisdom in order that we may know how to use our faculties to honor God and to bless our fellow men. This is the will of God concerning every human being, even your sanctification. In urging our way heavenward, every faculty must be kept in the most perfect condition, in order that it may do the most faithful service. The powers with which God has endowed man are to be put to the test. That which God requires of those whom he has created and redeemed, is summed up in the words: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength." "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you, to will, and to do of his good pleasure." Man is allotted a part in the great struggle for everlasting life. He must respond to the working of the Holy Spirit. It will require a struggle to break through the powers of darkness, but the Spirit that works in him can and will accomplish this. Man is no passive instrument, to be saved in indolence. He is called upon to strain every muscle in the struggle for immortality, yet it is God that supplies the efficiency. No human being can be saved in indolence. Christ assumed human nature, to demonstrate to the fallen world, to Satan and his synagogue, to the universe of heaven, and to the worlds unfallen, that human nature, united to his divine nature, could become entirely obedient to the law of God, that his followers by their love and unity would give evidence that the power of redemption is sufficient to enable man to overcome. And he rejoices to think that his prayer that his followers might be sanctified through the truth, will be answered; they will be molded by the transforming influence of his grace into a character after the divine similitude. All who would possess a perfect Christian character must wear the yoke of Christ. If they would sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, they must learn of him while on this earth. Christ says to all such: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." HOW THE LAW WORKS IN THE OBEDIENT AND IN THE TRANSGRESSOR.
By T. H. Starbuck
“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Ps. 19:7. “The law worketh wrath.” Rom. 4:15. These expressions from the word of God show unmistakably that the law is an active agency. If it converts the soul, then it is the power that works righteousness. This happy condition, however, can become established only in those who choose to have its pure principles written in their hearts; for this operation of the law in the heart depends upon the will or choice of the individual. God never interferes with the freedom of the will. He compels none to accept that condition. His word is life and power; and his law is primarily and constitutionally his word. As the law is an active agency of Almighty Power, it is in active operation in all living intelligences. The results of its operation are modified by the moral condition of the intelligent creature. They may be righteousness, or they may be sin, according to the mind which controls the individual. The Bible contains many expressions evincing that the law is an active, intelligent, forceful agency. Its work is compared to that of a minister. Its operation is called a ministration. Sin is a condition from which spring evil deeds; and righteousness is a state from which spring good deeds. The law is the natural power which God gives to his intelligent creatures and which gives them capacity to act. In this sinful state that power works wrath; but if the individual chooses Christ that same power works righteousness. In the former of these conditions the law is the “ministration of death;” in the latter, it is the “ministration of righteousness.” If God’s laws are not living, active agencies, working out his will, then he is not the Supreme Ruler. But it is known that his laws execute his will, for we read that he upholds all things by the word of his power. His word, or law, executes his will, which establishes his supremacy. He does not have to depend upon some ulterior agency to execute his will embodied in his law. He is supreme, and dependent upon nothing. Throughout his dominions all things proceed by the regular operation of his laws. There are two conditions then under which the law works out results. The first of these is normal, universal, and eternal; and is that phase of the operation of divine law which reveals God’s righteousness. It is the natural and characteristic revelation of God throughout his illimitable dominions. In this state of God’s native holiness, all his laws are conservatory forces. The natural trend of Almighty Power is not only to create, but to perpetuate without limit. All worlds except ours are embraced within this reign of righteousness. God is not the Author of death. All his laws are laws of life. “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Prov. 12:28. Could we but be translated to other worlds, we would find conditions there under which life reigns as positively and supremely as death reigns here. The second of these conditions is abnormal, local, and transitory; and is unknown except where sin exists. Sin is contrary to God because it perverts the laws which he has set in operation in a manner to perpetuate all created things, and turns them into destructive forces. For this reason “the wages of sin is death.” This reign of evil introduced by sin is only local. It is unknown experimentally except in this one lost world. It is an excrescence striving for existence in the midst of God’s eternal and universal reign of righteousness, and draws its temporary nourishment from the life forces of God. It is rife with power; but it is God’s power perverted. “There is no power but of God.” Rom. 13:1. God’s conservatory forces of righteousness are turned by sin into the destructive forces denominated “the curse of the law.” Gal. 3:13. “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. This abnormal action is in the nature of divine law, and is an inevitable penalty; and it is best for the creatures of God that it is so, for it prevents the perpetuation of the miseries of sin. The evidences found in the Bible, and corroborated also by nature, are numerous, showing that sin changes the administration of God’s power into a destructive energy resulting in death. In Eze. 20:24, God’s accusation against Israel is that they had grievously transgressed his laws; and in the next verse the result of sin is stated. “Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” That which God says he gave them is simply the result of their transgression. He gave it through the abnormal operation of his laws which their sin ushered in. Sin perverted good laws, and changed them into channels of evil. Other scriptures confirm this theory. 2 Cor. 3:7-11 contains evidence that when the law was promulgated from Sinai, a ministration of death was written and engraven in stones against a sinful race; but that ministration of death can be disannulled by Christ and superseded by the ministration of righteousness. It is accomplished by the crucifixion of the flesh, so that there will be no obstacle in the way of the normal operation of the law in the individual’s life. Rom. 8:2 contains words of similar import. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” The same law is the law of life to the obedient, and a law of death to the disobedient. Christ disannuls the latter and establishes the former. It is only in Christ that the sinner can have any hope of having this transformation take place in him. There are evidences in nature all around7 us that we are in the midst of a reign of evil. Nothing is permanent. All things are passing away. Death reigns because sin is doing its deadly work perverting the operation of the laws of God. The existence of this reign of death is evidence that there is a reign of life. If there were not an administration of power that is eternal, this reign of death would not have been possible. This imperfect state proves the existence of a perfect one. The forces of sin are not creative, but destructive. Sin can only destroy; it can not create. Hence the work of the Creator is to perpetuate, but the work of sin is to destroy; and if the Creator had not first done a work, sin could neither exist nor do its work. The Spirit of God is the source of all life, all divine law, and all the forces of nature. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4:6. The Spirit is the secret energy of all things. It is the “all power” that belongs to God. The modes by which it works out the will of God are his laws. That is why the word of his power is spirit and life. When God formed man he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or his Spirit: “All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils.” Job 27:3. The Spirit of God breathed into man became the source of all the powers of his being. By breathing his Spirit into man’s wonderful physical organization, God wrote his law, or moral image, in the nature of man. All the powers of his being are God-given powers. The parable of the talents illustrates the way in which God imparts his power to men, and how he will require of each one the improvement of that which he bestows. The right, or normal, use of those powers is righteousness; but the abnormal use of them is sin. As the Spirit of God is the source of those powers, or the source of the law written in man’s nature, it is evident that sin is a defilement of the Spirit. By transgression, the Spirit which God gives to man becomes filthy. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” 2 Cor. 7:1. While man is in sin the spirit in him is defiled. When he is converted that defiled spirit is renewed, or cleansed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Ps. 51:10. When man was first created all the powers and faculties of his being were in harmony with God. He had complete self-control, and consequently could direct the use of his powers in the way of righteousness. He was led by the Spirit. But when he transgressed the word of God, he lost that complete self-control, and became subject to a mind directly contrary to the mind of the Spirit. In the state of sin all the energies of man’s being are subject to the “fleshly mind;” but in the state of righteousness they are under the control of the Spirit. There is the mind of the flesh, and the mind of the Spirit. So long as the mind of the flesh is active in man his life will be sinful; but if he heeds the word of God, and lets the mind which was in Christ dwell in him, his life will be righteous. The mind, or will, of the man modifies the results of the Spirit’s action. This is why God tells man to “keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Prov. 4:23. Sin has changed man’s nature to “sinful flesh;” and while the law (or spiritual force) is still in his being (Rom. 2:15), it can not work out righteousness there because of the weakness of the flesh. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:3, 4. The way the law works in transgressors is illustrated in humanity controlled by sinful flesh; but the way it works in the obedient is perfectly illustrated in Christ. The presence of Christ in sinful flesh is the only remedy for its weakness. “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” 1 John 4:2. Happy is the man who has the Spirit of Christ in him; for in him the law works out righteousness. Self-control is regained by Christ within, the hope of glory. SABBATH REMEMBERING.
By W. E. Cornell
WHEN the work of creation was finished, the great Author looked over it all and pronounced it "very good." It was perfect. It challenged the admiration of all heaven, so much so, that the morning stars sang together and all the angelic hosts shouted for joy. Nothing was made in vain, but everything had its divinely appointed place in contributing to the well-being of man. The Sabbath was no exception to this rule. Christ declares that it was made for man (Mark 2:27), and the fact that it was specially blessed of God (Gen. 2:3) conclusively proves that it was designed to be a blessing to man. When Abram was asked to leave his home, and go into a land unknown to him, he was comforted by the divine promise, "I will bless thee, . . . and thou shalt be a blessing." This shows that when God bestows his blessing, it is that it may be reflected. The command from the mount was, "Remember the Sabbath day." Re—again; memorare—to bring to remembrance. The Sabbath was instituted as a weekly memorial of the great creative work and of its Author. Sabbath remembering, as it was originally designed, could have but one result—it would lead the mind up through nature to nature's God, and thus idolatry could never have been possible. What a wise provision! Somehow, it seems as tho through all the ages it has been the studied effort of the great arch-enemy to blind the eyes of even God's most zealous followers as to the real nature of true Sabbath-keeping. Instead of its being a blessing, it came to be loaded down with superstitions, ceremonies and grievous requirements, which made it a burden rather than a delight. Christ, the Author of the Sabbath, had much to say about proper Sabbath observance when he was here upon earth, and much of his teachings cut so squarely across the conventional ideas of his people that he was again and again openly charged with Sabbath breaking—a crime punishable with death. Of the prevailing sentiments, we read in connection with the account of his healing the impotent man (John 5:16): "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day." And again, when the eyes of the man blind from his birth were opened, the Pharisees declared: "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day." John 9:16. But Christ taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and by precept and example stripped the day of the meaningless ceremonies with which it was surrounded, and made it stand out as it really was designed to be, a blessing and not a burden to mankind. True Sabbath remembering comes from the heart. It is spontaneous. During all the week we are to look forward to that blessed day with delight, just as a typical young American does to the day of the celebration of our national independence. It is a time when we cease to do our own pleasure or think our own thoughts, but out of the abundance of the heart praise Him who has showered upon us the manifold blessings that we enjoy. It is always proper on the Sabbath day to do disinterested works of mercy toward both man and beast. The Sabbath, as no other day, affords an opportunity to parents of inspiring in their children a love and reverence for God; indeed, to the child of God the Sabbath is a "delight," "holy of the Lord" and "honorable." The Conspiracy of Pontiac
By Charles Morris
CHAPTERS IN UNITED STATES HISTORY.* NO. 5.
The Conspiracy of Pontiac.
The New Territory of the English—Their Scattered Forts—The Indians of the West—Pontiac, Their Great Chief—His Conspiracy against the English—He Is Baffled by Major Gladwin—Detroit Besieged—Capture of the Other Forts—The Defense of Detroit—The Assault on Fort Pitt—The Settlements Raided—Bouquet's Battle with the Savages—Peace at Last—Murder of Pontiac. THE close of the contest of England and France in America left England, as we have seen, master of the situation as far as France was concerned. But this lordship of England was largely on paper only. There was a third party to the dispute, the aboriginal owners of the territory, who were in actual possession, and were not likely to give up their ancient patrimony without a struggle for its ownership.8 The region in dispute, that lying between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, was for the most part one continuous forest, broken only by streams, rocks, reaches of prairie, or an occasional Indian clearing, planted with maize. The English claim to this vast outreach of forest land was indicated only by a few small forts, hundreds of miles apart, and garrisoned only by an ensign and sergeant, and a dozen or so of men. In their haste to supplant the French builders of these forts, the newcomers were blind to their dangers from the Indians, on whom, indeed, they often depended for supplies. Yet few and small as these forts were, they had alarmed the wandering savage. He had become in a measure attached to the French, who treated him with courtesy, and dwelt with him in his village on terms of intimacy. But he had been taught by them to hate the colder and sterner English, and it was a sore affliction to his eyes that he could not paddle his birch bark canoe over the waters of his native land without seeing the hated British flag, and feeling that he was being robbed of his birthright by strangers from a far distant land. The Indian tribes occupying this region were the Senecas, and Iroquois tribe, and the Algonquin, Delaware, Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, Potawatomies, Ottaways, Ojibways, and Hurons. Among these many tribes the man of the most power and importance was an Ottaway chief named Pontiac. He is said to have been a Catawba prisoner, adopted into this tribe, but by force of intellect he had risen to be the leading chief, and "the king and lord of the northwest." He was a man of integrity and humanity, according to the code of Indian morals, dauntless in courage and fertile in resources, and had gained the high respect, almost the adoration, of all the surrounding nations. At this time he was about fifty years of age, a man of dark complexion, medium height, powerful frame, and haughty bearing, with all the craft and subtlety of the Indian nature, and more than its ordinary ability. This man, more far-seeing than his savage compatriots, saw clearly that the invaders had come to stay, and that if not exterminated now while weak, they would exterminate the Indians when strong. French traders told them that their people across the waters did not propose to submit to defeat, but that a fleet bearing a great army was already on its way to the St. Lawrence. Thus encouraged, Pontiac organized in 1762 a great confederacy of the Indian tribes, for the purpose of attacking the English forts, laying waste their settlements, and driving them from the land. All the forts were to be attacked in a single day, entered by stealth or treachery, and their garrisons slaughtered, after which the scattered settlers could easily be destroyed, and the Indian patrimony regained. The date fixed for the attack was that of a certain change of the moon in May, 1763. Messengers were sent in every direction through the forest, bearing to distant tribes the red-stained tomahawk and blood-tinged belt of wampum, the signals of war. On April 27 a great council of chiefs was held, Pontiac addressed them in a long and earnest oration, dwelling on the wrongs they had received from the English, saying that the French were their friends, and were coming to their aid, and urging them to strike the projected blow. He found his auditors responsive to his wish, the details of the plot were completed, and the 7th of May was fixed as the date of the simultaneous assault. Meanwhile, secret as the savages had been, and warmly as they professed friendship for the English, some hints of the conspiracy leaked out. The officer in command at Fort Miami detected the bloody wampum belt in possession of the inhabitants of a village, who were about to forward it to tribes in the Wabash. On the 5th of May, the wife of a settler in Detroit, who had visited an Ottawa village to purchase maple sugar, saw the Indians filing off the ends of their gun-barrels. This she reported to Major Gladwin, in command of the fort, who at once guessed that some treachery was afoot. The purpose of the savages was evidently to conceal their guns under their blankets. He soon learned the truth of the conspiracy from an Ojibway girl, who loved him and put him on his guard. Detroit was the largest and most important settlement in the disputed territory. Reared on a wide and majestic river, its surrounding forests natural preserves of game, its waters stocked with fish and haunted by great flocks of water-fowl, its climate mild, its soil fertile, it attracted the whites and Indians alike, and Pontiac himself led the expedition against this leading stronghold of his foes. Gladwin had under him in the fort a garrison of 120 men and eight officers. The space outside, enclosed by a stockade, contained about eighty horses, principally occupied by traders. The fort possessed three small guns, and as many mortars, all of them hardly fit for use. In the stream outside floated two slightly armed vessels. The neighboring farm lands were occupied by French settlers, of whom there were about sixty families in the vicinity. Such was the situation on the arrival of the fateful day. At about ten o'clock of the morning of May 7, Pontiac entered the fort at Detroit at the head of sixty selected warriors, all plumed and painted and wearing gaudy blankets, beneath which lay hidden their weapons of war. Several hundred other warriors lurked in the forest outside. But to the surprise and chagrin of the conspirators, he found the garrison all drawn up under arms, the officers at their head with sword and pistol. He asked Gladwin what this meant, and was answered in a careless tone that the men were out for exercise. Pontiac held in his hand a belt that was white on one side, and green on the other. The turning of this belt in his hand was to be the signal for his warriors to draw their weapons and begin the massacre. But the chief was in a quandary. The English seemed prepared. Had the secret plot been discovered? He dared not act. Once during their long talk he seemed about to give the signal. The watchful Gladwin at once made a slight gesture, which was quickly followed by a rattle of arms and the roll of a drum. The discomfitted conspirator at length led his men away without a signal made, or a blow struck. The plot had failed. On the next day Pontiac came again to the fort, followed by a large crowd of warriors. But the gates were closed, and he was told that only he could enter. Instantly the detected conspirator threw off the disguise of friendship, declared war to the knife against the whites, and his warriors hastened to seal the declaration by murdering two or three English traders who had incautiously remained outside. This action was followed by a furious assault, the savages concealing themselves behind houses and trees and in the inequalities of the ground, whence they poured a storm of bullets upon the fort. But we must turn aside from the story of this siege to relate what took place at the other English forts. None of those had been warned of the conspiracy, and all were taken by surprise. Fort Sandusky, under the command of an ensign named Paulli, was taken May 16, and many slain, Paulli eventually escaping. The fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph was taken, nearly all except the commander being slaughtered. Fort Miami was also taken by treachery, and its nine captured. The fort at Venango, which Washington visited in 1853, was seized, and not a man of the garrison left to tell the tale. Fort Le Bœuf was set on fire and burned, but the garrison fortunately escaped. The neighboring fort at Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, after a few days' resistance, capitulated. The garrison at Mackinaw allowed a number of savages to enter to play a ball game within the stockade, the garrison was surprised, one officer and fifteen men were killed, and the rest taken prisoners. Tho these assaults had not been simultaneous, as arranged, they had been in nearly every case successful. Meanwhile the siege of Detroit continued. Food was scarce, but the commander succeeded in obtaining some supplies by way of the river. Pontiac forced the French farmers to supply him with food, and in civilized method give them in payment promissory notes drawn on birch bark, and signed with the figure of an otter. To his honor it is stated that all these notes were redeemed. He adopted another civilized device, sending fire-rafts to destroy the schooners in the stream, which had given him much trouble. In this effort he failed, tho it was several times repeated. The siege of the fort continued for three months, the assailants increasing till they numbered more than a thousand. Attempts were made to relieve it, with varying success. The first party of relief was attacked near the mouth of the river, and nearly all killed or captured. During June a schooner with sixty men reached the fort, and in July a reinforcement of 260 men was received. Dalyeil, the commander of this force, made a sally from the fort in opposition to Major Gladwin's advice, and suffered severely for his imprudence. He fell into an Indian ambuscade, and was killed, while his men only reached the fort after a heavy loss. Gladwin, however, continued his vigorous defense, and in the end forced the foe to give up the siege in despair, the garrison having been strongly reinforced. While this siege went on, Fort Pitt, formerly Fort Duquesne, at the site of the present Pittsburg, was besieged with equal vigor. This stronghold had a garrison of 330 men, and held over 200 women and children, who had taken asylum there from the fury of the savages. Several bodies of Delawares and Shawnees appeared before it and advised the garrison to withdraw, saying that they might do so in safety. As Captain Ecuyer, the commander, persistently refused, the fort was at length fiercely assailed by a large number of savages, who poured showers of musket balls and blazing arrows from holes they had dug in the ground. The siege continued throughout July, while the settlers in the neighboring districts were ruthlessly slaughtered, and more than a hundred traders were killed. While this went on, Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer in the English service, in command at Philadelphia, set out with a force of 500 men, and a long train of oxen, sheep, and pack-horses to the relief of the fort. He passed over the ground formerly traversed by Braddock, but, unlike Braddock, he knew how to deal with Indian foes. As he advanced the savages assailed his force with fury, gathering in such numbers as to completely surround it, and firing from behind every post of vantage. After a severe fight, lasting two days, the savages were completely routed, and four days afterwards Bouquet reached the fort, and the siege came to an end. During these raids 2,000 whites were killed, and the frontier settlements destroyed. Hostilities virtually ceased by the end of November through the good offices of DeNoyen, a French officer, but Pontiac kept his hostile attitude till 1766, when he submitted. Strong bodies of troops were sent into the Indian country, at sight of whom the tribes made peace, and delivered up their captives. In 1769 Pontiac was killed by a Kaskaskian Indian, who had been bribed by a trader with a cask of whisky. Thus perished one of the ablest of Indian warriors, and ended the most notable hostile confederacy of the Indian tribes. NEARLY every man is some boy’s hero
In the Revue de Paris, says the Literary Digest, Mr. Ernest Lavisse makes the condition of King Humbert's country a special study, and while he does not believe in a coming Italian republic, he does believe that, in the grave crisis through which Italy is passing, she will have to struggle to hold her own. Here is a telling excerpt:— "Italy's finances are drained by the theatrical desire to have a big army, and to parade an imposing fleet composed of vessels which cost a million pounds each; Italy's credit is undermined by unbounded corruption in her administration; Italy's prosperity is ruined by an insane tariff war with France. No wonder that the two principal enemies of the monarchy become bolder every day. These enemies are Radicalism and Papacy. "The Radicals have never given up the idea of an Italian republic, . . . and the pope has never forgiven, nor will he ever forgive, the sequestration of his secular power. Leo XIII. is a great pope. He essays to reëstablish the ecumenic pontificates. . . . Leo XIII. is not only a grand patriarch, he is also a great politician, who knows well how to distinguish between eternal and temporal affairs. He turns from the great, whose power is declining, and smiles upon the humble, who are being exalted. . . . Having been relegated to the Vatican by the king of Italy, it is quite natural that the pope should give the world to understand that kings are not at all a necessity." While Mr. Lavisse does not think that the monarchy will be overthrown, he admits its possibility. "But what if this enmity [between Radicalism and the Papacy] were to cease? The possibility of a union between these two exists, altho it would be difficult to arrange it. . . . If Radicalism were to unite with Papacy to establish a new Roman World Empire with the pope as its head, the dynasty would be in danger. What is an Italian king compared with an Italian pope who is master of the whole earth? The Romans can not forget that they once ruled the world, and that the pope succeeded Cæsar as representative of this rule." It may seem to statesmen who wish to have it so, that this power of the Papacy will never be realized; but the logic of events and the prophetic word declare differently. An emasculated Protestantism can not stand before a virile Papacy; and, as Cardinal Manning has said, "If rulers will not hear the pope's voice, the people will." And the word of God declares that that time will again come when the Papacy shall say: "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow."