“This has been to me a most trying scene,” observed the missionary, as the three pursued their way toward the garrison.  “How hard it is to convince men against their wishes.  Now, I am as certain as a man can be, that every one of these Injins is in fact a Jew; and yet, you have seen how small has been my success in persuading them to be of the right way of thinking, on this subject.”

“I have always noticed that men stick even to their defects, when they’re nat’ral,” returned the bee-hunter.  “Even a nigger will stand up for his color, and why shouldn’t an Injin?  You began wrong, parson.  Had you just told these chiefs that they were Jews, they might have stood that, poor creatures, for they hardly know how mankind looks upon a Jew; but you went to work to skin them, in a lump, making so many poor, wishy-washy pale-faces of all the red-skins, in a body.  You and I may fancy a white face better than one of any other color; but nature colors the eye when it colors the body, and there’s not a nigger in America who doesn’t think black the pink of beauty.”

“Perhaps it was proceeding too fast to say anything about the change of color, Bourdon.  But what can a Christian minister do, unless he tell the truth?  Adam could have been but of one color; and all the races on earth, one excepted, must have changed from that one color.”

“Aye, and my life on it, that all the races on ’arth believe that one color to have been just that which has fallen to the luck of each partic’lar shade.  Hang me if I should like to be persuaded out of my color, any more than these Injins.  In America, color goes for a great deal; and it may count for as much with an Injin as among us whites.  No, no, parson; you should have begun with persuading these savages into the notion that they’re Jews; if you could get along with that, the rest might be all the easier.”

“You speak of the Jews, not as if you considered them a chosen people of the Lord, but as a despised and hateful race.  This is not right, Bourdon.  I know that Christians are thus apt to regard them; but it does not tell well for their charity or their knowledge.”

“I know very little about them, Parson Amen; not being certain of ever having seen a Jew in my life.  Still, I will own that I have a sort of grudge against them, though I can hardly tell you why.  Of one thing I feel certain—­no man breathing should ever persuade me into the notion that I’m a Jew, lost or found; ten tribes or twenty.  What say you, corporal, to this idea?”

“Just as you say, Bourdon.  Jews, Turks, and infidels, I despise:  so was I brought up, and so I shall remain.”

“Can either of you tell me why you look in this uncharitable light, on so many of your fellow-creatures?  It cannot be Christianity, for such are not its teachings or feelings.  Nor is either of you very remarkable for his observance of the laws of God, as they have been revealed to Christian people.  My heart yearns toward these Injins, who are infidels, instead of entertaining any of the feelings that the corporal has just expressed.”