Family Life Resources•Newsletter
| NYM
Ministries
Family Life Resources•Newsletter |
| Subscribe to receive Today's Native Father with all its features FREE, | Articles Index | Read current issue of TNF | |
|
PRODUCT/RESOURCES INDEX |
This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #118, November/December, 2001. Related articles
from this issue: |
What Difference Does the Gospel
Make? |
|
As Rev. Egerton Young ministered the Gospel to aboriginal peoples around Lake Winnipeg, Canada, in the 1890's, he wrote the following report of how Christianity was changing the lives of women. “Marvelous were the changes wrought among (these people) when they became Christians. And in no way was the change greater or more visible than in the improved condition of woman. Under traditional ways, she has not the life of a dog. She is kicked and cuffed and maltreated continually. She is the beast of burden and has to do all the heavy work. If her husband shoots a deer anywhere within several miles of the wigwam he comes marching in, carrying his gun, and orders his wife to go and bring in the game, which may weigh anywhere from a hundred and forty to two hundred pounds. This she has to carry on her back all that distance, unless it happens to be in the winter. Then she drags it on a little sled. “Very quickly after they become Christians does all this change. Then happy homes begin. Mother and wife and sister and daughter are loved and kindly cared for. When they become aged and feeble the warmest place in the little home is assigned to them, and the choicest fish and the daintiest piece of game is given them. “When standing up in my pulpit...I have seen the big sexton suddenly throw open the double doors of the church and, while I was wondering who so large was coming in as to require two doors, I saw that it was two stalwart men carrying their invalid mother. With their four hands they had formed a chair, and over this and their two shoulders a blanket had been thrown, and there, seated on their hands, with one arm around the neck of one son and the other around the neck of the other, was the poor sick woman being tenderly and lovingly carried into the house of God, that once again she might worship with his people in his sanctuary. Carefully did they put her down and do all they could to make her comfortable, and when the service ended, with equal care and tenderness did they bear her away so lovingly to their home. Christianity made them do this. In their old state they would rather have died than thus carry an old woman. Now it is a labor of love.” From Stories from Indian Wigwams and Northern Campfires, facsimile edition published by Coles Publishing Company, Toronto, 1974. |
|
