Spanish; ever ready like the Swiss, to go where there was the promise of the greatest reward. They have been a sort of tennis-ball, which several powerful rival nations have alternately thrown and received. They have also generally resided on the very confines, not of civilization, but of outlawry, where white savages could congregate, and practise their impositions on the credulous red men with impunity. The vexed question of state-rights, has here been brought into full operation. Changes have

been rung on the imperium in imperio, till the Indians have been exposed to be legislated out of all rights and privileges. One imperial authority, like that of Russia, could have set the matter right at once; but in consequence of the complicated and delicate organization of our frame of government, there must be negotiation, treaty-making, deference to state-sovereignty, and perhaps inevitably a languid administration of justice. In addition to all, and as one foundation of all the difficulty, there has been the disputed and yet unsettled question in regard to the precise nature of the original right to the soil, and also the fatal practical belief that the Indians must, by an irreversible destiny, sink into annihilation. This last idea has operated secretly but most perniciously. What use in endeavoring to civilize an Indian tribe? They are vanishing like the leaves of the forest. Mild or merciless treatment is equally unavailing. No human power can stay the downward progress. Just as if God had implanted the elements of decay and death in communities and nations. Just as though he had placed a portion of mankind beyond the comprehension of that benignant command, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;' and just as if that gospel, received in its love and power, would not have arrested the degeneracy of the Indians, and happily reversed their condition. We are not believers in the necessary decline

of nations. Righteousness exalts a community, and a community will continue to do right, if the proper instrumentality be applied. God will not withhold his effectual blessing, except as a punishment to the skepticism or iniquity of his creatures. The Indians were not made to be destroyed. They have in their natures, all the germs of social and intellectual improvement. They have as clear an idea of a supreme Deity, as the enlightened Egyptians, or the philosophic Greeks and Romans ever possessed. They are not so low down on the road to spiritual reprobation and death, as the mass of the people of those ancient countries. The cold theory about Indian degeneracy, met with a full refutation nearly two hundred years ago. Eliot, and his philanthropic compeer, Gookin, showed of what the Indian nature, in conjunction with God's grace, is susceptible. The worshippers of devils were raised into the dignity of sons of God. At the same time, the wealth and respectability and population of the families, affected by the labors of the missionaries, increased. John Eliot understood the principles of a just political economy. There was no more difficulty in elevating the Penobscots, or Narragansets, or Mohawks, than there was in elevating the Indians of Natick or Martha's Vineyard. If other men had arisen with the same zeal, and love, and faith, which filled the bosom of Eliot and the Mayhews, there is every reason to believe that the Indians would now have been flourishing, independent, Christian communities; or incorporated and amalgamated with us, in the enjoyment of all civil and religious rights. The want of missionary effort one hundred and fifty years ago, must not be ascribed to an arbitrary appointment of God. At the very time when good men were slumbering over the destinies of a world of poor dying idolaters, and comforting themselves that the Indians were reprobate from divine mercy,

and destined to utter extinction, God, in his providence and by his Spirit, was rebuking their apathy, by signally blessing Eliot in the woods of Massachusetts Bay, the United Brethren in Greenland, and Schwartz in Tanjore. The fields were white to the harvest, but the reapers were idle. At a later day, why was there not more than one Brainerd? Why, but from the withering influence of the belief that the Indians were made, not for salvation, but destruction.

These remarks are offered for the purpose of illustrating the difficult, as well as interesting, nature of the enterprise in which Mr. Cornelius was now engaged. Many were the obstacles which were thrown in his path by men of enlightened minds, as well as by the ignorant reviler of missions. No objection was more frequently obtruded on his attention, than the utter hopelessness of all efforts to civilize the Indians. Why, it was triumphantly asked, expend your efforts in favor of men, who are beyond the reach of Christianity itself, and doomed to speedy annihilation? A still more harrassing mode of opposition he was called to encounter. This arose from the white emigrants and their agents, who looked, with an envious eye, on the rich lands of the Indians, and who were about to add to the crime of destroying many of them with the intoxicating liquid, that of removing the ancient landmarks, and of tearing up entire nations from the place of their fathers' sepulchres.

It was at this interesting juncture that Mr. Cornelius commenced his southwestern tour. It must have been truly refreshing to him, to have received such ample testimonials of the friendly feelings and cordial co-operation of the general government.

On the 17th of July, Mr. Cornelius visited Mount Vernon, the seat of general Washington. "The mansionhouse is an antique and venerable building. It fronts on

the Potomac, to which it presents a portico of ninety feet in length. The building consists of a main body and two wings. One of them was built by general Washington, and was constructed agreeably to his own wishes. In the rear, are serpentine gravel-walks, lined with trees leading to the garden and to the extremity of the rear court-yard. Numerous smaller edifices, such as the school-house, gardener's house, and houses for the servants, give the whole an aspect of a little village. The scenery itself, and the improved state of the place would compensate a person for the trouble of making a visit, and while he recollects that the whole has been consecrated by the presence and possession of one of the greatest of men, whose dust still sleeps upon it, he cannot but feel richly repaid."

Being obliged to remain in Staunton, Virginia, nearly a week, he took occasion to visit and thoroughly explore a celebrated natural curiosity, called "Weyer's Cave." Of this romantic mystery of nature, he has furnished a long and scientific account. At the close he says, "On the whole, it is one of the greatest curiosities I ever beheld. The discovery of the cave was made in 1806, by Mr. Barnett Weyer. Some game, taken in a trap, having drawn the trap into an opening among the rocks, were traced by a dog belonging to Weyer. The dog penetrated some distance into the rocks, and by the nature of the sound he made, suggested to the mind of his master, the idea that there must be a cavity in the rocks. This circumstance led to an examination, which, in the result, has disclosed one of the most interesting subterranean curiosities. The hill, in which it is situated, is full of caverns and holes of various sizes and description. The proba bility is that all are really but branches of each other. On the 22d of August, the cave was illuminated by one thousand candles, each fifteen inches long, placed in different parts of the cave, and which furnished, to a vast

number of persons who had come from a distance to behold, a rare opportunity for making a thorough examination."

On the 14th of August he made an accurate survey and measurement of the Natural Bridge in the vicinity of Lexington, an object, which the pen of Mr. Jefferson has described with so much force and beauty. "All that captivates the mind in a display of power, or loftiness of height, combine to excite wonder and admiration, while the distant view of the sky and flying clouds, as they are seen through the opening beneath the lofty arch, give to the whole an effect equally delightful and sublime.

"I confess, I cannot, from the strictest examination, see sufficient evidence to conclude with Mr. Jefferson that the hill has been cloven from the top to its base by some convulsion, leaving in this particular part a rock, which, not having fallen in the general shock, forms, as its result, the arch of the bridge. I had rather view it as the direct result of the hand of the Deity, and regard it as another striking proof of his wisdom and power."

From Lexington, Mr. Cornelius proceeded over the vallies and mountains of western Virginia, till he entered the State of Tennessee. Whenever an opportunity presented, he exhibited the subject upon which he was commissioned, generally before interested and attentive audiences. To his wakeful eye, and ardent curiosity, many scenes were presented in external nature, as he crossed the highlands, which separate the waters of the Atlantic from those that pass into the Mississippi, which filled him with admiration, and led him to adore that Power who "setteth fast the mountains."

The incidents which he met, during a short time before he arrived at Brainerd, the seat of the Cherokee mission, are thus detailed in a letter to his family-friends.