Many people have stumbled, and do still stumble over this service to the ruin of their souls. Therefore, pray for God's Holy Spirit to guide you in all things, trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation; flee from every sin; and strive earnestly and sincerely to please God; and casting all your care upon Him as Our Heavenly Father, rest and rejoice in Him. Your faithful friend, W. DUNCAN, For Father Duncan's views on the dangers of sectarianism in the mission field, see General Index, Sectarianism. Upon leaving the Sitka school for Marietta College in Ohio, Edward Marsden wrote the following in a letter published in the North Star, a Presbyterian newspaper edited by Dr. Sheldon Jackson and Prof. William A. Kelly at Sitka, Alaska, September 1891: In Mr. Wadhams' office (at Portland, Oreg.) I had a last talk with Mr. Duncan, who is a great friend of mine and to whom the honor of our Metlakahtla civilization is due. I took his hand, bade him Godspeed, and we parted. MARSDEN TAKES “A VERY BOLD AND WISE STEP" With his inordinate conceit and dazzled by his new environments, Marsden little appreciated Father Duncan's advice which he so much needed; and little did he understand the full meaning of these words which he himself wrote to Dr. Jackson in a letter dated July 8, 1904: Pupils going to a higher school directly out of ignorance and heathenism, such as we have done many times before, will in many cases give us disappointment. Puffed up with pride, Marsden thus measured his attainments in a letter to Father Duncan dated October 18, 1893: I have now on my list more than 20 different trades and they have proved to me a great blessing * The following is quoted from a pamphlet, entitled "The Life of Edward Marsden", widely distributed by him during his college days and visits to the eastern cities: Edward Marsden was born on May 19, 1869, at Metlakahtla, in northern British Columbia. His parents were both heathens and descendants of the Tsimpshean Tribe, known as the Terror of North Pacific early in the present century, but both were converted to Christianity in 1859 through the earnest and untiring efforts of Mr. William Duncan, a missionary from England. Their family name was a gift from the same country-a gift given to them soon after their conversion. His father departed to the better land when he was at the age of 9, and when he was regularly attending a day school When a part of the Tsimpshean Tribe moved over to Alaska, Mr. Marsden, with his mother and sisters, went with it. * * * he went to Sitka in the spring of 1888, and there again he resumed his studies, * * *. While there he was named "Jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-some", and at one time, owing to the sickness of the superintendent, the institution was committed to his charge until he was able again to resume his duties. From Sitka he visited his new home and having supplied the needs of his mother, he left Alaska early in 1891 and came to Marietta, Ohio, to get an extended and liberal education before entering his life's chosen work. Marietta College has enrolled him among the ninety-fives, and it is his will to return to his country as soon as he gets through. This is what he says of his own life: "Three times have I come pretty near breathing my last-once at home by sickness and twice on sea by starving and drowning. * ** * "I started out in 1880 with one 'muddy trade', as mother used to call it, but now I can depend somewhat upon 20, including printing, which I learned during my brief stay at Carlisle, Pa., in the summer of 1892. "These are a few of the many facts that will help us to understand that to reach the top of the hill we must begin at the foot, and with patience and courage struggle onward and upward till the summit of the hill is reached." On January 21, 1895, while Dr. Jackson was planning the establishment of the village of Saxman, Marsden wrote the following to Father Duncan: Mr. WILLIAM DUNCAN, New Metlakahtla, Alaska. MY DEAR FRIEND: * MARIETTA COLLEGE, Marietta, Ohio, January 21, 1895. You are probably aware that I am approaching the end of my college work. These years have been marked with much success. I am now on a firm basis and confident of doing efficient work better than heretofore. Next June I graduate from Marietta College. But I have taken a very bold and wise step. After a very careful and deep consideration, after much prayer and after I have consulted my learned friends in Washington and other cities, I have fully decided to remain here another 3 years to pursue a theological course and become an ordained minister of the gospel, and an authorized interpreter of legal affairs. Now I want your help. I want it in the forwarding of my legal equipment. You have already helped me, but there is something yet to be done. I have my lawyer instructors already selected and the work has begun. The tuition for the whole course, which occupies not less than 2 years, is $50. I can toil for my text books and all I need from you as a loan is the said $50. When I enter the seminary, this work will not interfere with my required studies as it takes the place of Greek and Hebrew. I desire to have the amount as soon as possible, and with the understanding that my dear afflicted mother shall have nothing to do with it. * * * I do realize that you are very busy, but a word from you occasionally will do me much good. You know me very well, and if anyone that will be faithful to you in your closing years, it is the writer who has always respected and praised your name and good work in this and other States. * * In the spring of 1898, I shall then have completed my 10 years training. Wishing you well and a very strong and good health, FATHER DUNCAN'S ADVICE EDWARD MARSDEN. As an instance of Father Duncan's benevolence to Marsden and of his kindly advice and willingness to aid him financially in any wise step toward the completion of his education, the following letter written by Father Duncan to Marsden, dated March 4, 1895, when the latter was a student at Marietta College, in Ohio, is offered for the record: METLAKAHTLA, ALASKA, March 4, 1895. DEAR EDWARD: Your letter of January 21 is before me and I will reply to it in the order you have arranged. Your new plans. You inform me you have taken a "bold and wise step" and have fully decided to remain 3 years longer for education in theology and law. Your announcement, of course, takes us all by surprise and your mother deprecates the change in your plans very much as she was fully expecting you home next summer. Now that your sister has gone she is left very lonely, for your Uncle Thomas, as you know, cannot be much of a companion for her. As to your studying theology. I must say I have my doubts as to its utility in your case. If your aim was to take work among white people, where controversy in religious matters is continually to the front, I would say by all means study theology that you might be able to hold your own among your compeers. But if your aim is to be a missionary of the gospel to your own kith and kin, I can see no good in your studying abstruse theological questions which may only, after all, unhinge your mind and impede your usefulness. All that you need to be a winner of souls in Alaska is to have a practical acquaintance with the word of God and be endued with power from on High. To be called and ordained by the Holy Ghost is the only ordination of value in God's service. Our people want nothing to do with exclusive allegiance to any sect or denomination. In their declaration they promise to hold loving fellowship with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ. We take our stand there and so keep aloof from all predilections as to party. The Metlakahtla Church owes nothing of its prosperity to denominationalism, and our experience has taught us to have nothing whatever to do with isms. We aspire only to belong to that church our Saviour Himself points out"Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I, in the midst of them." If missionary work be your desire, and for which you are preparing, you had better refrain from vowing allegiance to any church party. I was pressed very hard to take ordination in the Episcopal Church of England many years ago, but even then I could see enough to keep me from the step. My long experience since then has strengthened my convictions that church orders would have been as cumbersome to me in the mission field, as Saul's armor would have been to David in his fight with Goliath. Next I observe from your letter that you entertain a somewhat low opinion of the religious attainments of our people, and that you consider our independence as a church to be necessarily but a temporary arrangement. These views we have heard expressed before, but always, or invariably, by persons wedded to sectarianism. However, I must beg to differ from you and from others on both these issues. I really think you would have to take a long journey before you would find another Christian community, as a whole, better enlightened in Christian doctrine, or more practically carrying out Christian teaching than the one at Metlakahtla. Still we will not boast. By the grace of God, we are what we are. Now another matter. Judging from your letters I have received at various times I fear you are indulging the idea that learning, and the spread of knowledge, are the cure-all for the world's degradation, and especially omnipotent for the uplifting of the Indian race. If such be your views, I must again beg to differ from you. Are we not assured by the Apostle Paul-"the world by wisdom knew not God." Who so learned as the Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman philosophers of old? Yet their respective countries were famous for superstitution, slavery, and heathen abominations. Again whom did our Lord choose to carry His life-giving Gospel to the world? Were they not termed unlearned and ignorant men? Yet they turned the world upside down. Still, learning is not an evil. It is a great and good thing in its way-but it is not the light of the world, nor the Saviour of the world. Depend upon it, Edward, it is not an extensive acquaintance with booklore, but a consecrated spirit we need, first of all, to do effectual work for the uplifting of mankind. Next you ask the question in your letter "How far have we directed our eyes in the future?" I reply, we walk by faith-not by sight. It is enough for ns that God sees and knows all the future, and if He is our ruler and guide, we have nothing to fear in the future. Our duty is to look up to Him as the Israelites looked up to the cloudy pillar, and we shall go safely forward through the wilderness. 26465-39-pt. 35-21 Perhaps your remarks may refer to our financial affairs as a church. If such be the case, I am happy to tell you to cease your fears. Do not listen to those gloomy questions-what will become of us when so and so dies? How will the church at Metlakahtla be then supported? Will you not then have to come under the fostering care of some church organization? Persons who ask such questions would hold their tongues if they knew a little more of our private affairs. I thank God He has spared me long enough to see the financial difficulty satisfactorily removed. Through God's rich blessing upon our business affairs-there will be ample funds left at the disposal of our church officers, when I am called away, to meet every necessity for church and school. Now, as to your studying law. I strongly advise you to give up the idea of becoming a professional lawyer. I think any well-educated man would be able to read up as much law as he would require in a settlement like ours without having the assistance of lawyers. I hear that Mr. Kelly at Fort Wrangel is studying law by himself, and is already ably filling the post of a United States Commissioner. I quite agree with your mother, and other of your friends, that if you do extend your years of training, by all means give the time to the medical profession. Enter a hospital or serve under a doctor, for such an education as you would thus acquire would be a great boon, and certainly much more in character with missionary work than that of a lawyer. Our Saviour went about "healing all manner of sickness." He is our example as well as our Lord and Saviour. Follow Him. If you write to tell me you are willing to study for a doctor instead of wasting your time on law and theology, I will be willing to help you financially all I can. With every good wish for your welfare and usefulness, believe me, Your true friend, MARSDEN'S REPLY W. DUNCAN. Edward Marsden replied to this wise and fatherly advice and generous offer of his great benefactor by writing to Father Duncan a bumptious, disrespectful, and contemptuous letter, dated April 18, 1895; and after that time, aided and abetted by representatives of the Bureau of Education and their confederates, he devoted his life to villifying and defaming the man who saved him from savagery. SECTION 18. PLOTTERS USE CRAFTY NATIVE AS TOOL IN VICIOUS ATTACKS ON FATHER DUNCAN Marsden characterizes his adopted patrons. The type of native selected by plotters as their willing tool. Marsden's two-faced methods approved by commissioner of education. False allegations regarding Father Duncan's school. A characteristic statement. Plotters fear detection. Duplicity of Marsden. Betrayal of his benefactor. Acknowledges Father Duncan as his benefactor. Campaign of defamation against his benefactors. Father Duncan's benevolence to an ingrate. While continuing to seek favors plotter plans to undermine his benefactor. Sly and secretive methods. The Metlakahtla Christian Church. Conspirator denies existence. Conspirator admits existence. Documents showing persistent intrusion and interference with Father Duncan and his mission by the Saxman missionary. Marsden denies interference. The Saxman missionary's song of hate. The Saxman missionary proclaims destruction of Father Duncan's mission. Marsden discredits himself. Governor Swineford's opinion of Marsden. Typical native opinions of Marsden. Statement by Dr. Henry J. Minthorn The deplorable failure of Marsden as a missionary and in his pretensions to leadership, and the way in which he wasted his opportunities for good and resorted to the meanest methods to accomplish his evil purposes, furnish a striking lesson to Government authorities and mission boards, whose official duties require them to formulate and carry out proper policies in shaping the destinies of primitive peoples. MARSDEN CHARACTERIZES HIS ADOPTED PATRONS After utter failure for 20 years to meet the responsibilities entrusted to him by Government and church officials, Marsden, in a report to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, dated March 31, 1917, thus attempted to shift the blame and to confuse the issues: Another thing that tried to harm our work is the increasing race prejudice that exists between the native and the white man. I believe we ourselves are to blame for this more than anybody else. We have permitted ourselves to become pets and victims of our white brethren. We have adopted their superficial ways and loved to imitate their vices. We have learned from them how to use two tongues and put on two faces. How many times have they found out we tried to cheat them in business. When they have deceived us once we sometimes consider all white men to be liars and hypocrites. Yes; we are to blame for this misunderstanding between ourselves and the white man * THE TYPE OF NATIVE SELECTED BY PLOTTERS AS THEIR WILLING TOOL It is not true that "the only good Indian is a dead one", and Marsden is not a typical representative of the North American Indians. Among all races there are to be found the proverbial white and black sheep. American Indians rank high amongst native peoples and the greater number possess inherent noble traits of character, to which Father Duncan so successfully appealed. Those who know and thoroughly comprehend the traits of primitive peoples are aware that there are very distinct classes insofar as their inclinations are concerned-one chivalrous, responsive, sincere, loyal, grateful, ambitious to attain real improvement and advancement, and desirous and capable of understanding when approached by proper methods. On the other hand, there is also a class among primitive peoples who have excessive vanity; an inordinate passion for power and leadership in ruling over others; feelings of venomous animosity and hatred toward any of their fellow men who may stand in their way, and jealously of the white man's superior attainments. It is among this second class of primitives that we find a treacherous nature, suspicious, cunning, ungrateful, unscrupulous, relentless, cruel, vicious, and vindictive, with an insatiable thirst for revenge for real or imaginary wrongs. The plotters' selection of a native of this latter class as their "key to the open door of southeastern Alaska" naturally appealed to his inordinate egotism and greed, and thus lured him to a quickened anticipation of leadership of the Metlakahtlans. Thereby the representatives of the Bureau of Education and their confederates "have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8:7.) With agents of the Government inciting, assisting, and supporting this self-seeking native who fabricated "his marvelous stories" and vicious slanders He was puffed with pride and feeding, He was swollen like a bladder. As already shown, Marsden was not of the class amongst his people qualified or temperamentally suitable for leadership, and of that fact the Bureau of Education received timely warnings. |