Then I told him of those recent and former lives of my own which I most vividly remember, and cited proofs that I did not deceive myself. “But what a life is that of the white man for one of my people?” he demanded. Then he flashed me picture after picture of the simple white man’s life in America, the schoolhouse with the choking-hot stove and the bad air, the house and home with closed doors and windows, the “meeting-house” where a droning or a noisy preacher prated of things he did not understand, to others who believed or did not believe that they believed him. He held up before me as for ridicule the clothing of the white man in the lower walks of life, the confining and uncomfortable shoes, the binding trousers, the ugly hat that makes bald the head, and the collar. The one he pictured was a paper collar, soiled and wilted at the edges. Then he showed me--as if to prove the breadth of his observations--an office in a city, with the clerks seated upon stools and bent with aching backs over ledgers that contained figures, figures, long lines of figures that were the symbols of the white man’s wampum, which seemed so trivial when made the principal occupation of a soul that had rejoiced in the red man’s forest. “And is it for this that they come back to their native land?” he asked. “But the soul must gain all experience,” I said. The idea seemed new to him, and he pondered it with knitted brows. “Why should the soul gain all experience?” he asked. “That it may return to its God rich in knowledge,” I replied. “Its God.” At that thought the strange eyes of him lighted, though his face remained immobile. “Yes,” I said, “for your God and my God are both God.” “There are many gods,” he replied. “There is the Great Spirit, and there are the others.” “In the centre of each of them,” I assured him, “there is a spot, a core of the heart that is the same in all, that exists everywhere, and in every heart is one, that knows no division; and that centre is also in your heart and mine and in that of our respective Gods.” “Did you learn that in one of those hot schoolhouses?” he asked. “No. I did not learn it even when I was an old man upon the earth, but after I came out here. On earth I rather prided myself on my separateness.” “Then one can learn new religions out here?” he asked, in surprise. “If one finds a teacher,” I replied. “But what need is there of _new_ religions?” “There is,” I said, “in the core of every religion also that central spot where all are one. And there is in all races,” I pursued, for I saw that he watched with half-belief, “there is in all races a core of unity. The red man is the brother and not the permanent enemy of the white man. So why should you injure the descendants of those who followed what they believed to be right in extending their holdings in this land long ago?” “But I was not seeking to injure them for injury’s sake.” “Then I misunderstood the purpose of your magic song.”