“But ought I to wish it otherwise? Will not science make more happy, and religion repay by its influences all the evil which has been brought on its name? Has it done it? Alas! I am distressed. What is to be the effect of all? Are the white men, with their religion, to drive the red men from their possession only to have more ample scope for vice, only to waste each other by the fraud with which they, in most places, overcome the Indians? or is the establishment of both to produce the happiness to all which is promised by their leaders? And are these doubts, these apparent difficulties, the result of my inability to judge of what is to follow, as the vision is now disturbed by the uncertainty of the dawning light, whose perfection will restore all things to their proper appearance?” “Oh, let me yet, as I shall abide with these conquerors of our people, let me at least acknowledge that it is not they but their religion that detains me. No, deeply as I reverence my Father Harris, and much as I love William, I would join the wasting, the decaying remnant of my tribe; and if I could not revenge their wrongs, I would die with them undisgraced by treachery. But that religion—ah, they hold me there; they have driven from my heart most of the creed of my childhood. Only here and there is found a belief, green, from its association with infancy, but still beautiful, still cherished. While they have erected in my heart the form of their own faith, unfinished yet, but still promising, still sheltering. They have dealt with me as with our forests, in which our tribes had their home, they cut them down, leaving here and there a tree to tell of the things that were, and placing incomplete edifices for their own shelter—edifices that they promise shall be sufficient and beautiful in time.” The sun was rising above the horizon, and not a cloud stood in his whole pathway to the west. The tops of the mountain caught and reflected its first rays. As the warmth increased, the mists, which had fallen thick toward the base of the hills, began slowly to rise and roll in massive columns upward, or to pass off by the _gap_ through which the river rushes. Rebecca gazed at the scene until her fancy moulded these morning mists into the forms of cherished beings. The whole energies of her tribe seemed to revive within her, and all of the wild and the unearthly that distinguished the dreams of her childhood rushed back upon her mind.