Cree people

“ Many a brave hunter who had a score of scalps to dangle from his belt, sought, but sought in vain, a kind glance from some beautiful maiden of his tribe, who before the pale faces came would have deemed great indeed the honour of becoming the spouse of a warrior so distinguished. Jealousy began to fill the hearts of the Crees, but the mothers and wives, and the daughters too, were constant mediators, and never ceased to exert themselves for peace. ”

“ A sociable people given to conversation and belief; no books in the house, no history taught in the schools; it is likely that must have been the way of it in old Greece, when the king of highly civilised Crete was turned by tradition into a murderous tyrant owning a monster and a labyrinth. ”

“ Of the religious opinions of the Crees, it is difficult to give a correct account, not only because they shew a disinclination to enter upon the subject, but because their ancient traditions are mingled with the information they have more recently obtained, by their intercourse with Europeans. ”

“ The negro, like many other lower races, has the faculty of speech largely developed, and John Creedy had been noted as one of the readiest and most fluent talkers at the Oxford Union debates. When he enlarged upon the need for workers, the need for help, the need for succour and sympathy in the great task of evangelization, Aunt Emily and Ethel forgot his black hands, stretched out open-palmed towards the people, and felt only their hearts stirred within them by the eloquence and enthusiasm of that appealing gesture. ”

“ Let us see their errors, their weaknesses, their daily actions, their familiar conversation, and catch the tone of their society. When we discover how far the most admirable community ever framed was removed from that perfection to which human society is impelled by some active power within each bosom to aspire, how great ought to be our hopes, how resolute our struggles! For the Greeks of the Periclean age were widely different from us. It is to be lamented that no modern writer has hitherto dared to show them precisely as they were. ”

“ All that can be called by the name of tradition, the political faith of a people, and the national feeling of right, had, in the Grecian world, been transformed into mere reasoning and concerned itself, with frightful exclusiveness, to the contrast existing between rich and poor. ”

“ Here old Anchises, father of Æneas, rich in the lore of old tradition, says:
Listen, lords of Troy, and learn where your hopes are. Crete lies in the midst of the deep, the island of mighty Jove. There is Mount Ida, and there the cradle of our race. It has a hundred peopled cities, a realm of richest plenty. ”

“ In the midst of all this, the bishop was still occupied in his important translation work. He had in the summer examined and revised an edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress into Cree, by the Rev. J. Vincent.
He hoped to be able to send the work home by the next ship, to be printed. The names of some of the characters in this work are remarkable for their length in the Cree dress. Christian is the same as in English, but Hopeful is Opuhosalems; Faithful is Atapwawinewen; Little Faith, Tapwayaletumowineshish; Evangelist is Miloachemowililew; Save-all is Misewamunachetow ”

“ One of the Crees, whom they had met a few days before, had been tracked into the valley along with his wife and family by five warriors of a hostile tribe. On perceiving the odds against him, the man gave himself up for lost, observing to the woman, that as they could die but once, they had better die without resistance. ”

“ But this word "development," so familiar to modern thought, implies not only outward circumstances to educate, but a special germ to be educated. So long as the human being is regarded as a lump of dough, to be moulded into any shape by external influences, no such term as "development" was needed. But philosophical historians now admit national character to be the result of two factors,—the original ethnic germ in the race, and the terrestrial influences which unfold it.205 A question, therefore, of grave moment concerns the origin of the Hellenic people. ”

“ We feel assured that we shall faithfully interpret the sentiments of our fellow-countrymen by saluting your return to this city, and by assuring you, at the same time, that the remembrance of the benefits conferred by your late illustrious husband is always living in our hearts. When the sun of liberty shall arise upon the Island of Crete, the Cretans will, no doubt, decree the erection of a monument which will attest to succeeding generations the gratitude of our country toward her noble benefactor. ”

“ Crete seems to have had more than the other earlier civilizations of what today is called society. The women were not secluded but mixed freely at court and in all social functions, and life seems to have been joyous and free from care. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX. THE CHURCH IN CRETE AND ITS ORGANIZATION.—THE APOSTLE’S DIRECTIONS FOR APPOINTING ELDERS.
“For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge; if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children that believe, who are not accused of riot or unruly. For the bishop must be blameless, as God’s steward.”—Titus i. ”

“ The formation of creeds tends to create division and to perpetuate division. Caesar's maxim illustrates their history: "Soldiers will raise money, and money will make soldiers." So creeds will make sects, and sects will make creeds. "A creed or confession of faith is an ecclesiastical document—the mind and will of some synod or council possessing authority—as a term of communion by which persons and opinions are to be tested, approbated or reprobated." The sect churches are built on their creeds, although, of course, they affirm that their creeds are built on the Bible. ”

“ In Cleon, the man of composite art and culture, the last ripe fruitage of Greek development, is personified and brought into contact, at the moment of the dawn of Christianity in Europe, with the ardent impulse the Christian ideal of spiritual life supplied to human civilization. ”

“ As we did not witness any of the Cree dances ourselves we shall merely mention that, like the other North American nations, they are accustomed to practice that amusement on meeting with strange tribes before going to war and on other solemn occasions. ”

“ When I try to realize it as a sort of semi-secret society for mutual help with a mystical religious basis, resting first on the proletariates of Antioch and the great commercial and manufacturing towns of the Levant, then spreading by instinctive sympathy to similar classes in Rome and the West, and rising in influence, like certain other mystical cults, by the special appeal it made to women, the various historical puzzles begin to fall into place. ”

“ When you grow older and read your classics, you will learn a great deal about the heathen gods and goddesses whom the Greeks worshipped in the days before Christianity had come to enlighten the world.
Crete, in the days of Grecian glory, was one of the most famous parts of that wonderful empire. From its favorable geographical position, it was at one time the place through which all the arts and wonders of Asia and the East were made known to the then rough and uncultivated Europeans. ”

“ The spheres allotted to the feminine divinities very much correspond to the above series. In Here the ethical bond of marriage is the most dominant trait. Ceres is the instructress and developer of agriculture, and as such has presented mankind with both those adjuncts to its cultivation, that is to say, first, the care for the nurture of natural products, which satisfy man's immediate wants, and, secondly, the spiritual accessories of property, marriage, right, the beginnings of civilization and moral order. ”

“ The ox in his pasture is as free and as much at his ease as the proprietor of the soil, and the days of the first are not more shorten’d to feed the intemperance of others, than the rich landlord’s by the indulgence of his own. I look upon the goddess Ceres as a much less impartial and universally kind deity. The antients thought they did her honour by ascribing to her the invention of laws. ”

“ I might add “Cretensis incidit in Cretenses”; the Anglesey man is down on the Anglesey men. But I would rather not translate the Greek. You will find it in St. Paul’s letter to the first bishop of Crete, Chapter I.
This, of course, is all ancient history. More than a generation of men has passed, and the new generation may be vastly different. Moreover, there was a revival in the island not long since. The people are changed in heart.
“Do you think a Tory candidate will be returned at the next election, Mr. ”

“ Yet after all we are all of us concerned with things as we meet them, and religion and philosophy, speaking in generalities, do shape people's houses, occupations and dress. Here, then, came the Greeks bringing gifts, generous gifts for which he felt he had been searching, at one time blindly, lately more definitely, all his days. ”

“ The ideas of remote savages concerning the proper manner of initiating youth in the religious and other mysteries of life may seem of little personal assistance to superiorly civilized people like ourselves. But let us turn, therefore, to the Greeks. They also had preserved the idea and the practice of initiation into sacred mysteries, though in a somewhat modified form because religion had ceased to be so intimately blended with all the activities of life. ”

“ Hæmon, Creon's son, betrothed to Antigone—and who is perhaps the only "lover" in all ancient tragedy, so widely different is the Greek drama from our own—comes now to plead for the life of his affianced bride. Then ensues a scene familiar in life and fiction, where two strong wills inevitably clash—the son eager and impassioned, the father hardened by that sense of duty never so keenly felt as when stimulated by a private pique. The first and foremost of all duties in the home and in the state, argues Creon, is obedience. The family must be one—united under the patria potestas. ”

“ I am much moved by the mention made of the services which my late illustrious husband was able to render to the cause of Greece in his youth, and to that of Crete in his later life. It is true that his earliest efforts, outside of his native country, were for Greek independence, and that his latest endeavors in Europe were made in aid of the Cretans, who have struggled with so much courage and perseverance to deliver their country from the yoke of Turkish oppression. ”

“ We should remember, as the Athenians remembered of the Spartans at a season of jealousy and temptation, that our race is one, being of the same blood, speaking the same language, having an essential resemblance in our institutions and usages, and worshipping in the temples of the same God. ”

“ We of the Christian era have a clear doctrine of right and wrong to guide us, a law given from without ourselves, the result of revelation. The Greeks, on the other hand, "had to interrogate nature and their own hearts for the mode of action to be pursued. ”

“ The Cree women are not in general treated harshly by their husbands, and possess considerable influence over them. They often eat, and even get drunk, in consort with the men; a considerable portion of the labour, however, falls to the lot of the wife. ”

“ Surely ye are our kinsmen on my father's side, and ye pray that with kindly hearts we succour your evil plight. For Cretheus and Athamas were brothers. I am the grandson of Cretheus, and with these comrades here I am journeying from that same Hellas to the city of Aeetes. But of these things we will converse hereafter. And do ye first put clothing upon you. ”

“ Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. ”

“ Ceres, therefore, or the intellectual soul, in the course of her wanderings, that is, of her evolutions and goings-forth into matter, is at length captivated with the arts of Baubo, or a corporeal life, and forgets her sorrows, that is, imbibes oblivion of her wretched state in the mingled potion which she prepares: the mingled liquor being an obvious symbol of such a life, mixed and impure, and, on this account, liable to corruption and death; since every thing pure and unmixed is incorruptible and divine. ”

“ Already wise thoughts have turned the barbarian into a gentleman and citizen, and some glad day thoughts will crown man with the attributes and qualities of God.
Of old, the Greek philosopher described the origin of man. One day Ceres, in crossing a stream, saw a human face emerging from the soil. It was the face of a man. ”

“ The people of Crete have hitherto submitted to the rule of the leading families as Cosmi, because the insular situation of Crete cuts off the interference of strangers or foreigners which might stir up rebellion against the unjust or partial government. ”

“ These traditions were not mere cloudy myths, or idle fictions, but matters of implicit earnest faith to the men of that day: and many a fervent prayer arose from the Athenian ranks to the heroic spirits who while on earth had striven and suffered on that very spot, and who were believed to be now heavenly powers, looking down with interest on their still beloved country, and capable of interposing with superhuman aid in its behalf. ”

“ His descendant Cyrus, on the contrary, had learnt by personal observation to enter into the feeling of personal dignity prevalent in the Greeks around him, based as it was on the conviction that they governed themselves and that there was no man who had any rights of his own over them,—that the law was their only master, and that in rendering obedience to it they were working for no one else but for themselves. ”