“I suppose so,” said the young man, laughing.  “Holden may now truly call himself the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and a wilderness it is likely to remain.”

There was something both in the manner and language that jarred the feelings of Faith, and she said: 

“I will never give up the hope that these poor people may be Christianized.  Do you not think, Esther, that there has been an improvement in the habits of the tribe within a few years?”

Esther hung down her head, and only answered, “Indian will be Indian.”

“I will not despair,” said Faith.  “Be sure, Esther, you come to the house before you return.  I have something for you, and a message for Father Holden.

“I can conceive of no character,” said Faith, after they had parted from Esther, “more noble than that of the Christian missionary.  He is the true redresser of wrongs, the only real knight that ever lived.  You smile,” she said, looking at Bernard.  “Do you not think so?”

“I think with you,” he replied.  “There can be no nobler man than he who submits to privation, and exposes his life to danger through love to his fellow man.  It is God-like.  But I smiled at the association of ideas, and not at the sentiment.  Think of Holden as a knight.”

“To me there is nothing ludicrous in the thought.  When I look at him, I see not the coarse unusual dress, but the heroic soul, that would have battled valiantly by the side of Godfrey for the holy sepulchre.”

“I am afraid he will meet with only disappointment in his efforts to reform the Indians.”

“We cannot know the result of any labor.  We will do our duty, and leave the rest to God.”

“They have not the degree of cultivation necessary to the reception of a religion so refined and spiritual as the Christian.  They must first be educated up to it.”

“But you would not, meanwhile, neglect the very thing for which they are educated.  Religious instruction must be a part of the education, and it brings refinement with it.”

“Certainly, if it can be received; but therein consists the difficulty.  I am afraid it is as reasonable to expect a savage to apprehend the exalted truths of Christianity, as one unaquainted with geometry, the forty-ninth proposition of the first book of Euclid.”

“The comparison is not just.  Science demands pure intellect; but religion, both intellect and feeling, perhaps most of the latter.  The mind is susceptible of high cultivation, the heart feels instinctively, and that of a peasant may throb with purer feeling than a philosopher’s and for that reason be more ready to receive religious truth.  And who may limit the grace of God?”

“You have thought deeper on this subject than I, Faith.  But how hard must it be for the rays of divine truth to pierce through the blackness of that degradation which civilization has entailed on them!  The conversion of the North American Indian was easier at the landing of the Pilgrims than now.”