Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1907 — A UNIFORM INDIAN RELIGION. [ARTICLE]

A UNIFORM INDIAN RELIGION.

Indian tv fle Given Instruction that Will Not Befuddle Him. A form of Christian religion that will not befuddle the Indian is being arranged now by experts in the Indian Department at Washington, and is to be introduced in the government Indian schools throughout the United States. The Indian bureau expects to have the form ready for introduction by the commencement of the autumn-terms. L The new policy will bar sectarian influences from Indian schools. At present ministers of all denominations are allowed to practice their respective creeds in the government schools, together with a particular kind of teaching and prayers. The result is that the Indian pupils become eonfused. They find the Lord’s prayer read and printed in different ways and different constructions placed upon some passages of the S<&?f>ture. Henceforward, however, after the uniform religious code has been introduced, only non-sectarian exercises will be permitted. Each denomination, however, will be allowed to instruct Indians who desire to embrace a particular faith, but there is to be no more- competition among denominations for converts. All Indian tribes originally had a form, of religious worship, which was adhered to with surprising persistency. The attempts to convert the red man, however, have been unceasing since the first discoveries of the American continent by white men. The first white man to live among the Indian tribes of this locality was a Spanish priest, who, with the intention of converting the Indians, came into this country with Coronado during the seventeenth century and remained with the Pawnees. Eventually he was tortured and murdered by the people whom he sought to convert.