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Zaproburno Yollanica Directory 08
Page 05
Throughout the reservation those most deeply affected by the messiah belief have been appointed spies over the others. If any persist in the use of old medicine paraphernalia, they are reported at once and harassed by threats of plague, sickness, ill-luck, disaster, and even death, which Das Lan claims to be able to cause or to dispel at pleasure. Once the threat is made, nothing unwelcome can happen to one under the ban that is not immediately attributed, by all the medicine-man's disciples, to the disfavor of the gods; and nothing more potent is necessary to convert the unbeliever, for there is no Indian reared in the wilds who is not steeped in the belief that his gods are all-powerful in both causing and eradicating every ill.
As early as the Easter of 1171 Becket's sepulchre was the scene of many miracles, if Matthew Paris, the historian, is to be believed. What must have been the credulity of the people in an age when an historian could gravely write, as Matthew Paris did in 1171? "In this year, about Easter, it pleased the Lord Jesus Christ to irradiate his glorious martyr Thomas Becket with many miracles, that it might appear to all the world he had obtained a victory suitable to his merits. None who approached his sepulchre in faith returned without a cure. For strength was restored to the lame, hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, health to the lepers, and life to the dead. Nay, not only men and women, but even birds and beasts were raised from death to life."
Children clapped their hands and ran to meet him; girls greeted him with offerings of flowers; and when he had dismounted, both old and young gathered about him, lisping him a welcome and shaking him by the hand. There was nobody like Dominie Payson, and the love these people bore him, and now gave him so many expressions of, was true and heartfelt. And when he had kissed the children, and exchanged greetings and kind words with their parents, he proceeded into the church, followed by his flock. His sermon was, perhaps, one of the oddest ever listened to, for after returning thanks for the bountiful harvest, and extending on the goodness of God, and advising his flock to stick firmly to their farms and their religion, that being the only true way of getting to Heaven, he turned his guns against Mr. and Mrs. Chapman, though he never once mentioned their names. He urged his flock to keep in mind always how much better off they were, how much more happy they were than those men who came to town with the devil and a number of strange religions in their heads. Such people, he added, always had the devil for a friend; and it was the devil who assisted them to get poor people's money. And with this money they dressed their wives in silks and satins, built big houses, and lived like people who were very proud and never paid their debts, nor did a day's work on the roads. It was all well enough for these men to talk of Heaven and put on pious faces, but Heaven would take no notice of them while they gave themselves up to the temptations of the devil and built steamboats and founded railroads, to kill honest people with, and ruin the country.
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