"By reference to the above letter by Lieutenant Rogers to Governor Abernethy, it will be seen that the arms and ammunition attempted to be taken into the upper Indian country by Catholic priests, have been seized by Lieutenant Rogers, and deposited in Fort Lee. Orders had been dispatched to Lieutenant Rogers to seize and detain those munitions. [A mistake of the editor. Lieutenant Rogers seized the ammunition, and wrote for orders.] Much credit is due to Lieutenant Rogers and the little garrison at Fort Lee for the promptness and efficiency with which they acted in the matter.
"We understand that there was no disposition on the part of the officers of the government to destroy or confiscate those munitions, but that they were detained to prevent their transportation into the Indian country under the present juncture of affairs.
"We had intended to have spoken upon the attempt by Catholic priests to transport such a quant.i.ty of arms and ammunition into the Indian country at this time, but as those munitions have been seized and are now safe, we abstain from present comment upon the transaction!"
The above notice of the transaction, as given by Lieutenant Rogers, is a fair specimen of the man who occupied the place of an editor at the time this infamous course was being carried on in Oregon by the two parties engaged in supplying the Indians with war materials. No one will suppose for a moment that these priests ever bought or owned the powder and arms; their own private supplies may have been in the cargo, but the ammunition and arms were on the way into the Indian country, under their priestly protection, for the benefit of their masters, the Hudson"s Bay Company, who, as we have repeatedly proved, were acting in concert upon the prejudices and superst.i.tions of the Indians.
Was it a great undertaking for that company to drive a thousand or twelve hundred American settlers from Oregon at that time?
Robert Newell, already known to our readers, says, in speaking of missionaries and settlers, "They could not have remained in the country a week without the consent and aid of that company, nor could the settlers have remained as they did up to 1848." We are willing to admit Mr. Newell"s position only in part. We know that company"s power and influence in Washington and London; we also know fully what they attempted to do from 1812 to 1821, and only succeeded by a compromise with their opponent. We also know all about their operations and influences in Oregon, and are ready to admit that they had the disposition to destroy the American settlements. We also know the extent of the effort made to establish a claim to the Oregon country by means of their French and Hudson"s Bay half-breeds, and we are fully aware of their effort to procure witnesses to substantiate their monstrous claims for old rotten forts and imaginary improvements. Knowing all this, we deny that that company had the courage, or would have dared to molest a single American citizen or missionary, only as they could influence the Indians by just such means as they used to destroy _Smith"s party on the Umpqua_, drive Captain Wyeth and the American Fur Company from the country, and destroy Dr. Whitman"s settlement. Any other course would have involved the two countries in a war, and led to an investigation of their proceedings and of their charter.
"That company," says Mr. Fitzgerald, "have submitted to all manner of insult and indignity, and committed all manner of crime, and they dare not go before any competent tribunal for the redress of any real or supposed injury, or right they claim."
This brings us to the reason that Mr. Douglas gave in answer to Mr.
Ogden, in the presence of Mr. Hinman, "_There might be other than sectarian causes_" _for the Whitman ma.s.sacre_, and here we have the united effort of priests and Hudson"s Bay Company to attribute the ma.s.sacre to _measles_ and _superst.i.tion_, while we have the positive testimony of Mr. Kimzey and others to show that the whole was determined upon before any sickness was among the Indians. From the testimony of General Palmer, the Donner party, Mr. Hines, and Mr. Ogden, we find but the one effort; which was, to prevent, or diminish as much as was possible, the settlement of the country. And why? To answer this question clearly, we have traced the early history of that _monster monopoly_ in previous chapters, and given their proceedings in countries under their exclusive control. To ill.u.s.trate more clearly the subject of the previous and present chapters, we will give an article we find in the Oregon _Argus_ of February 9, 1856, eight years after the war. The article is headed:--
"_The Catholic Priests and the War--"A Catholic Citizen" attended to._
"_To the Editor of the Oregon Argus:_
"SIR,--For the past month I have noticed several virulent articles in each issue of your paper, all tending to impress upon the minds of your readers the idea that the Catholic priests were the head and front of the present Indian difficulties; and being fearful that your constant harping upon that one subject might render you a monomaniac, I am induced to submit to your _Argus_ eyes a few facts in relation to the conduct of the Catholic priests prior to and during the present war. In your issue of the 8th inst., I find an article based upon the following extract from the official report of Colonel Nesmith:--
""With sundry papers discovered in the mission building, was a letter written by the priest, Pandozy, for Kamaiyahkan, head chief of the Yankama tribe, addressed to the officer in command of the troops, a copy of which is communicated with this report. There was also found an account-book kept by this priest Pandozy, which is now in the custody of Major Raines. This book contains daily entries of Pandozy"s transactions with the Indians, and clearly demonstrates the indisputable fact that he has furnished the Indians with large quant.i.ties of ammunition, and leaving it a matter of doubt whether _gospel_ or _gunpowder_ was his princ.i.p.al stock in trade. The priest had abandoned the mission, but it gave unmistakable evidence of being cared for, and attended to, during his absence, by some Yankama Indian parishioners."
"You then proceed with great _sang froid_ to pride yourself upon the correct "position" which you took about a month previous, relative to the above subject, and presuming upon the safe "position" which you thus a.s.sumed, you say the priests have in a measure prompted the Indians to the late outbreak! A bold presumption, truly, when we find the puny evidence which you have to back your "position." You further a.s.sert as a fact, "that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quant.i.ties of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy." This, sir, is a _fact_ which emanated from your own disordered imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you _know_ it; but then, it must be recollected that a little buncombe capital does not come amiss at this time, and if you can make it off of a poor priest by publishing a tissue of groundless falsehoods against him, why even that is "grist to your mill.""
"The foregoing is a portion of a communication which appeared in the _Standard_ of December 13, over the signature of "A Catholic Citizen." The writer of that article, in endeavoring to blind the eyes of his readers, and his pretending to correct us in reference to certain statements we had made concerning a few things connected with the present Indian war, as also the Cayuse war of 1848, in which the Catholic priests had by their intercourse with the savages created more than a suspicion in the minds of the community that they were culpably implicated in the crimson character of these tragedies, wisely intrenched himself behind a fict.i.tious signature. He has thereby thrown the responsibility of some three columns of pointless verbiage, flimsy sophistry, and Jesuitical falsehoods, upon the shoulders of an irresponsible, intangible, ghostly apparition, probably very recently dismissed from some sepulcher at Rome, or from the carca.s.s of an Irishman just swamped in the bogs of Ireland.
"Seven or eight weeks have now elapsed since we called upon this Roman Catholic citizen to emerge from his hiding-place among the tombstones, and if he was really incarnate, with a body of flesh and bones, such as the rest of us have, to throw off the mask, and not only give us a full view of his corporeal developments, but also to send us a copy of the book by which he cleared Pandozy, and justified himself in issuing, from his sweat-house Vatican, his bull of excommunication against us.
"We have thus far "harked" in vain for a sound "from the tombs."
Like a true Jesuit, that loves darkness rather than light, he not only still persists in keeping his name in the dark, and keeping the "book" we rightfully called for in the dark, but attempts to enshroud the whole subject in total darkness, by making up his own case from such parts of Pandozy"s book as he chooses to have exposed, and then thrusting the whole ma.n.u.script into a dark corner of his dark-colored coat, and in order to darken what light we had already shed in upon the dark nest of Jesuits, among the dark-skinned and dark-hearted savages, he most solemnly denies as false the most important of the dark charges we made against them, and then, after "darkening counsel" by a whole column of "words without knowledge," by which, like the cuttle-fish, he darkens the waters to elude the hand of his pursuer, and then, under cover of all this darkness, he dodges into his dark little sweat-house, and issues his terrible bull consigning us to a _very_ dark place, where the mult.i.tudes of dark Jesuits that have gone before us have doubtless made it "as dark as a stack of black cats." But what makes the case still darker is, that while "Catholic Citizen"
refuses to expose his personal outlines to our "Argus eyes," but intimates that as he is a member of the Catholic Church, and of the Democratic party, if we let off a broadside upon either of these societies, and wound either of their carca.s.ses, the one bloated on the blood of saints, and the other on the juice of corn, we shall of course inflict a material injury upon him, upon the principle that "when one of the members suffers, all the members suffer with it;" we say, that in view of the fact that after "Catholic Citizen" has claimed to be a member of both these organizations, the Corvallis organ of the Sag Nichts and Jesuits has whet the razor of authority, and lopped him off, as a heterodox member, and consigned him to the fires of d.a.m.nation, because "Catholic Citizen" has intimated that the two bodies were not identical, thus wisely enveloping him in a dark cloud, and translating him far beyond the reach of our guns, makes the case terribly dark indeed.
""He (Catholic Citizen) displays the cloven foot of either direct opposition to the Democratic organization, or sore-head-ism and disaffection with that organization.----We can hardly conceive that the author of that communication is a Catholic, or a friend of the Catholic Church."--_Statesman_ of Dec. 25.
"Thus it will be seen that the editor of the "organ" takes him by the top tuft, and applies the "rapin hook" to his neck as a heretic, and not a genuine Catholic, because of his "sore-head-ism and disaffection with the Democratic organization," thus unequivocally a.s.serting that the church and the clique are identical, or so closely identified that in placing himself in opposition to the one, he proves that he is not a friend of the other. Now whether the action of the organ has been from a malicious desire to "bury him out of our sight" as an "unfruitful branch" of the Catholic and Democratic trunk, or whether he intended in _mercy_ to wrap him up in his Nessean shirt, and hide him from our view by denying to him the only earthly position he a.s.sumed, it matters not particularly to us. We shall probably teach him, or his ghost, in due time, a lesson which we long since whipped into the tough and slimy hide of the biped who controls the _Statesman_, and which he and his ilk would do well to read in the welts that checker his back, before they make their onslaughts upon us, viz., whenever we state a thing to be true, you may rest a.s.sured that it _is_ so, and by calling it in question, you may be sure you will provoke the _proof_. We are not of that cla.s.s of lying editors who make false charges which they are not able to sustain, and we have never yet vouched for the truth of a statement, and been afterward compelled to back out of it. Whenever we make a mistake, on account of bad information, we are sure to make the correction as soon as we are apprised of it, whether the statement affects the character or interest of friend or foe, or neither.
"Your vile innuendo, that we wished to make a little buncombe capital off a poor sniveling priest, is readily excused, knowing as we do your impressions from a.s.sociating with political comrades who neither yield to nor expect justice or decency from their political opponents; and presuming also that the moment you stepped your foot upon American soil, with your little budget of Irish rags, some demagogue put a loco-foco hook into your nose, and led you off to the political pound to learn your catechism, so fast that the remaining half of the nether extremity of your old swallow-fork made a right angle with your stalwart frame. We know very well what sort of lessons you have learned out of that catechism; how you have been duped to believe that the principles of Jefferson and other old sainted Democrats were still cherished by the designing demagogues who have taken you in tow; how we who oppose this office-hunting party are "down upon Catholics and foreigners"
simply because they are such; and how you had only to put in the "clane dimocratthic ticket" to insure yourself great and glorious privileges. Under this sort of training, it is not surprising to us that you not only expect us to persecute you to the full extent that a priest is sworn to "persecute" heretics, but that you are constantly in fear that the "_Noo Nothins_" will soon be ladling soup from a huge kettle that contains your quarters boiled up with Irish potatoes.
"We were not led to make the remarks we did in reference to the priests because they were _Papists_, but because we had reason to believe they were traitors to our government, and were identified with the savages in the present war. If Methodist, Presbyterian, or _any other Protestant clergymen_ had rendered themselves equally obnoxious, we should probably have given our opinion at the time, that they deserved to be brought out of the Indian country, with all their "traps," to undergo a trial before a jury for their lives.
"But, sir, to one of your falsehoods:--
""You further a.s.sert as a fact, "that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quant.i.ties of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy." This, sir, is a _fact_ which emanated from your own distorted imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you _know_ it."
"Now, sir, we did not suppose that there was a man green enough in all Oregon (excepting, perhaps, the _Statesman_) to call our statement in question. We happen to be an old Oregonian ourself, and profess to be pretty well posted in reference to many occurrences which will make up the future history of this lovely yet blood-stained land. The proof of our a.s.sertion we _supposed_ could be come at by our file of the _Spectator_. The fact was still vivid in our memory. At the date of this transaction (August 21, 1848), there were three papers printed in the Territory: The _Free Press_, an 8 by 12 sheet, edited by G. L. Curry, present governor of Oregon, and the Oregon _Spectator_, a 22 by 32 sheet, edited by A. E. Wait, Esq., both published at Oregon City; besides a semi-monthly pamphlet, printed in the Tualatin Plains, and edited by Rev. J. S. Griffin. Although all of these papers at the time spoke of the transaction referred to, we believe none of them, excepting the _Spectator_, contained the official correspondence necessary to make out our case. We supposed, and so did many others, that all the old files of the _Spectator_ were long since destroyed, excepting the imperfect one in our office. When "A Catholic Citizen" called our statement in question, we, of course, referred to our "file" for proof, but to our astonishment this particular paper was missing, although the immediate preceding and succeeding numbers were all there, embracing the whole summer of 1848. The missing number was _accidentally_ (?) misplaced, of course, and the _proof_ of that transaction supposed to be beyond our reach. By the kindness of a gentleman we have been furnished with the desired copy from his own file." (See official note and letter as previously quoted.)
"Now, will "A Catholic Citizen" contend that our statement, in reference to the "large quant.i.ties of powder," is not fully covered by "_seven or eight hundred pounds of powder, fifteen hundred pounds of lead, and three boxes of guns_."
"A man who can unblushingly utter such a falsehood as he has been guilty of, to create a public sentiment in favor of these priests, is below contempt, and we feel our task of exposing him to be truly humiliating. We have branded this goat with an L----, which will stick to his hide as long as Cain carried _his_ mark; and we now turn him out to browse for a while with B., who wears about a dozen of the same brands, under the pain of which we have sent him off howling. "A Catholic Citizen" may feed on "_ferrin_" till we get time to clap the same brand to him again, when we shall tie him up to the post and again scorch his wool."
In reference to the article, as quoted from the Oregon _Argus_, it is not certainly known who "Catholic Citizen" is, but the impression is that the production is from the pen of Hon. P. H. Burnett or Sir James Douglas, and not impossible from Robert Newell, with such a.s.sistance as he could obtain.
If from either of those gentlemen, he may have been correctly informed as to the real owners of the munitions, but we can hardly believe Mr.
Douglas or Newell would lay themselves liable to the falsehood charged upon them, as they were in the country, and must have known of the facts in the case. Mr. Burnett was in California, and may have been misled by his informant. Be that as it may, the munitions were found on their way into the Indian country in charge of the priests, and the remarks of the editor of the _Argus_, W. L. Adams, Esq., shows the true history of the times, and the continued effort of the Jesuits and their neophytes to continue the Indian wars, to prevent the Protestant missionary stations from being reoccupied and the settlement of the country by the Americans, as intimated by Father Hoikin, in his letter to his society in Brussels.
Our provisional army did not capture a single murderer or prominent Indian engaged in the ma.s.sacre, though many of them were known to have been frequently with the priests and at Fort Wallawalla. Neither the priests, McBean, nor the indescribably sympathizing Sir James Douglas made the least effort to bring the murderers to justice. A part of them were given up by the tribe,--tried and hung at Oregon City under the Territorial government of the United states, Judge Pratt presiding. In the trial, the same influence was used to get the murderers acquitted that had instigated and protected them in the commission of the crime.
The discovery of gold in California took place before our troops had all returned; the universal excitement in relation to it caused the desertion of a large portion of the Hudson"s Bay Company"s men, and almost an abandonment of the fur trade in the country for the time.
They, however, still kept up the semblance of fur trade; and, at the expiration of their parliamentary license in 1858, withdrew to British Columbia and Vancouver Island to repeat upon their own people what they have practiced so successfully and so long upon the Americans.
There is, connected with this foreign company, a sort of Jesuitical suavity of manner and boasting propensity that naturally deceives all who come within its influence.
All its t.i.tles and little performances of charity are sounded forth with imperial pomposity. The man that does not acknowledge his obligations to it for being permitted to remain in the country previous to the expiration of its parliamentary license, is considered ungrateful by it, and by such as are blind to its infamous practices.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Missions among the Western Indians.--The Coeur d"Alene Mission.--Protestant and Catholic missions compared.--What the American Protestant missionaries have done for the country and the Indians.--Extent of their influence, progress, and improvements.--Patriotism of Dr. Whitman.
Any person who has read the previous pages of this volume will not charge us with being ignorant of missionary operations on our western coast. Though we were but eight years connected in mechanical and business relations with them, still we have never lost sight of their labors, or their intellectual, moral, religious, political, or physical operations, nor of their personal conduct, or their adaptation to the work a.s.signed them. We have spoken plainly our views, and impressions of the character, conduct, and influence of all prominent men in the country. Our main object has been to introduce the reader to the people of Oregon at the time in which they were acting in a public capacity.
The private morals of the country have only been incidentally drawn out by reference to a pet.i.tion sent to Congress, signed by the Rev. David Leslie, in 1840. In that doc.u.ment Mr. Leslie does himself and the country an injustice, by a.s.serting that "theft, murder, infanticide, etc., are increasing among them to an alarming extent" (Senate Doc., 26th Congress, 1st Session, No. 514). Those charges Mr. Leslie no doubt sincerely thought to be true at that time, from the occurrence of the two most serious crimes about the time he wrote. But such crimes were by no means common.
It is often asked, _What good have the missionaries done to the Indians?_ If this question applied alone to the Jesuit missionaries, brought to the country by the Hudson"s Bay Company, we would say unhesitatingly, _None at all_. What few Indians there are now in the country that have been baptized by them, and have learned their religious catechisms, are to-day more hopelessly depraved, and are really poorer and more degraded than they were at the time we visited them twenty-two years since, looking carefully at their moral and pecuniary condition then and now. In proof of which we give the following article:--
"_Coeur d"Alene Mission._
"The old Mullan road from the Bitter Root or Missoula River to the Coeur d"Alene Mission, shows to the traveler little evidence that it was once explored, laid out, and built by a scientific engineer.
Decayed remnants of bridges are scattered all along the Coeur d"Alene and St. Regis Borgia rivers; excavations have been filled up by the _debris_ of fallen timber; huge bowlders that have rolled down the mountain side, constantly crumbling ma.s.ses of slate, and huge chasms, worn or torn by the furious progress of the streams swollen by the melting snows and spring rains, obstruct entirely the pa.s.sage of vehicles of all kinds, and render the pa.s.sage of pack and saddle horses almost impossible. In the distance of eighty miles, you cross these two rivers one hundred and forty-six times, climb the precipitous sides of numerous mountains, continually jumping your horses over fallen timber, and filing to the right and left to avoid the impa.s.sable barriers which the mountain tornadoes have strewn in your way. The gorges, through which the road sometimes winds to avoid the mountains of rocks that close in even to the edge of the main stream, are narrow, and so completely shaded, that the rays of the sun have never penetrated, and one everlasting cold chill dampness prevails. Our party were halted for an hour in one of those pa.s.ses to allow the pa.s.sage of a herd of two hundred Spanish cattle, and, although when we emerged from the canon we found the sun oppressively hot, I do not remember ever to have suffered more from cold in any climate or in any alt.i.tude. The oppressiveness seemed to spring from something besides the mere temperature. We found but one living thing in those narrow canons, and that was the most diminutive of the squirrel species. There was no song of birds or whir-r-r of partridge or grouse. It had the silence of the cold, damp grave.
"After arriving within six miles of the mission, the canon of the Coeur d"Alene opens out to about four miles in width, and you come suddenly to Mud Prairie,--a broad, open park, with here and there a solitary pine, and the ground covered with a heavy growth of swamp gra.s.s, which stock will only eat when nothing better can be obtained. Two hours more, and the mission, with its stately church (so it appears in the mountains), suddenly presents itself to view.
"Dilapidated fences are pa.s.sed, rude Indian houses made of "shakes,"
fields of wheat and vegetables overrun with weeds, and at last, making the one hundred and forty-sixth crossing of the river, you halt your hungry and jaded horses in front of the rudest piece of architecture that ever supported a cross or echoed to the _Ave Maria_ of the Catholic faith. Rude though it is, when we consider the workmen by whom it was constructed and the tools employed, the feeling of ridicule and smile of contempt will give way to admiration of the energy and (though I think mistaken) zeal which sustained the Jesuit fathers during what was to them, at that time, a most herculean labor. The building is 46 by 60 feet, and 30 feet posted, and was two years in process of construction. The workmen were two or three Jesuit priests, a.s.sisted by a few Indians, and the reverend fathers showed me a saw, an auger, an ax, and an old jack-plane, their only tools. It is situated on a little elevation from the main valley. On the left is the dwelling of the fathers, and still to the left is the storehouse, hospital, workshop, and building for the sick and crippled recipients of their benefactions.
Around the slope of the elevation are scattered Indian huts and tepees, and at its base lies the resting-place of departed Indians who had died in the faith and gone to the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit. In front of all, the Coeur d"Alene, seemingly satisfied with the havoc which its furious progress had made, runs slowly and sluggishly along. The interior of the church is a curiosity. Here you see the marks of an unfortunate stroke from a clumsy ax-man; there a big Indian had sawed a stick of timber half off in the wrong place; in another spot, a little Indian had amused himself boring holes with the auger, while the joints "broke" like a log-house before c.h.i.n.king. I was told that in its original construction there was not a nail used; but lately some efforts have been made to smooth down the rough exterior by the addition of cornice and corner-boards.
"The priests are very jealous of their claims to the territory around the mission, and regard the unlimited control of the Indians as a right which they have acquired by their self sacrificing labors, and as a duty on the part of the Indians in return for the salvation of their souls and absolution from their sins. For my part, from an acquaintance with twelve tribes of Indians, among whom the gospel has been preached, and the forms, mysteries, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church introduced, I have failed to see a soul saved, or one single spark of Indian treachery, cruelty, or barbarism extinguished. The lamented General Wright thrashed the murdering propensities of the Coeur d"Alene Indians out of them.
The balance of their virtues--stealing, drinking, and supreme laziness--they possess in as large a share as they did before the heart of Saint Alene was sent among them. I would like to give a favorable portrait of this mission and its occupants, if I could. I would like to say that the reverend fathers were neat, cleanly, intelligent, hospitable individuals, but there are too many who travel that road, and it would be p.r.o.nounced false. I would like to say they were sowing the seed of civilization and cultivating it successfully in the untutored mind of the poor red man, but truth forbids. I would at least be glad that they urged upon the Indians to obey the laws of this government and respect the property of its citizens, but must leave that task to some one who has never bought of them horse meat for beef, and traveled for days on foot, because they would not, from pure deviltry, sell him one horse out of a band of two or three hundred. I say not these things with any reference to the Catholic Church or its belief, nor am I forgetful of what I have read of the Jesuits of St. Bernard and their acts of humanity; but for the filthy, worthless, superannuated relics of Italian ignorance, who have posted themselves midway between the extremes of Pacific and Atlantic civilization, acknowledging no law save that of their church, I have not the slightest particle of respect, and believe with an old packer, "that it was a great pity General Wright had not carried his threat into execution, and blown the den over the range.""[21]
[Footnote 21] From the Oregon Herald of May 5, 1866.
These Indians were among the most honest, peaceable, and hopeful of any west of the Rocky Mountains. The mission here spoken of is the one represented by Fathers De Smet and Hoikin as their most successful one west of the mountains. We have reason to believe that Colonel Dow"s statements are correct, from remarks made by other travelers, as also from Father Joset"s own confession. On the 61st page of "Indian Sketches," he says: "I have been here nearly fifteen years; I am not yet master of the language, and am far from flattering myself with becoming so. My catechist remarked to me, the other day, "You p.r.o.nounce like a child learning to talk; when you speak of religion we understand you well, but when you change the subject it is another thing," That is all I want, I have at last succeeded in translating the catechism; I think it is _nearly_ correct. You can hardly imagine what it cost me to do it; I have been constantly at it since my arrival here; I finished it last winter; nevertheless it is short; it has but fourteen lessons; it is based upon the first part of the Catechism of Lyons. This catechism is printed, not on paper, but on the memory of the children."
According to Father Joset"s own statement, it has taken him nearly fifteen years to learn their language sufficiently well to teach the children fourteen lessons in the catechism, about as much time as some of our Protestant missionaries have consumed in translating the whole of the New Testament, and a large part of the Old, into heathen languages, besides establishing schools, where they teach the people to read the pure word of G.o.d and practice its sacred principles, instead of following the traditions of men.