"Ah, they are a strange, servile race! They work with their hands."
The Indian paused and looked down at the wrinkled yet shapely members
that lay before him. "They look upon the grand forest as their natural
enemy, burning, cutting, mutilating, until they have made that odious
thing 'a clearing,' when a house is built with the dead bodies of the
beautiful trees that have fallen by their hand."
"But surely they are not wholly bad," pleaded the girl, her kind heart
refusing to accept the belief that even the lowest of humanity could
be utterly worthless.
The chief was not to be turned from the swift current of his thoughts
by idle interruptions.
"Their religion is dead, buried in a book, and they put it from them
as easily as they put the book on the shelf. Our religion is alive,
broad as the earth, deep as the sky. They go into a _house_ to
worship; _our_ temple is fashioned by the great Spirit, and our
prayers ascend continually like the white smoke from our wigwams. Ah,
but they should be pitied not blamed. They are far from the heart of
nature--they have ceased to be her children.
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