He solemnly refreshed his nose with the snuff, although that feature seemed hardly receptive of any sentiment of satisfaction, so long and thin it was, so melancholy of aspect, giving the emphasis of asceticism to his pallid, narrow face, and his near-sighted, absent-minded blue eyes.
“I mean, of course, by ordinary standards, sir. I’m as good a Christian as Mervyn, or Lawrence, here, or Innis, or—or—the captain,” Raymond concluded, with a glance of arch audacity at the commandant.
“Hoh!” said Captain Howard, hardly knowing how to take this. He did not pretend to be a pious man, but it savored of insubordination for a subaltern to claim spiritual equality with the ranking officer.
“When we are most satisfied with our spiritual condition we have greatest cause for dissatisfaction,” declared the parson.
With his lean legs encased in thread-bare black breeches and darned hose,—he had been irreverently dubbed “Shanks” during the earlier days of his stay at Fort Prince George,—his semi-ludicrous aspect of cadaverous asceticism and sanctity, so incongruous with the haphazard conditions of the frontier, it would have been difficult for a casual observer to discern the reason of the sentiment of respect which he seemed to command in the minds of these gallant and bluff soldiers. Their arduous experience of the hard facts of life and the continual defiance of death had left them but scant appreciation of the fine-spun sacerdotal theories and subtle divergencies of doctrine in which Mr. Morton delighted. Seldom did he open his oracular lips save to exploit some lengthy prelection of rigid dogma or to deliver the prompt rebuke to profanity or levity, which in the deep gravity of his nature seemed to him of synonymous signification. He might hardly have noticed the subject of conversation of the party as he walked by the commandant’s side along the rampart, but for the word “religion.” He seemed to be endowed with a separate sense for the apprehension of aught appertaining to the theme that to him made up all the interest of this world and the world to come. Therefore he spoke without fear or favor. His asceticism was not of a pleasing relish, and his rebukes served in no wise to commend him. It was his fearlessness in a different sense that had made his name venerated. The rank and file could not have done with rehearsing, with a gloating eye of mingled pride, and derision, and pity, how he had driven the gospel home on the Cherokees, in season and out, they being at his mercy, for by the rigid etiquette of the Indians they were forbidden to interrupt or break in upon any discourse, however lengthy or unpalatable. And how he had persisted, albeit his life was not safe; and how the head-men had finally notified Captain Howard; and how Captain Howard had remonstrated in vain; and how at last Ensign Raymond had had the old parson literally brought off in the arms of two of their own command. It is to be feared that it was neither learning nor saintliness that so commended the old missionary to the garrison of Fort Prince George.
Now it seemed that the Cherokees had lost their own religion, if this amulet represented it, for by their curious racial logic Raymond possessed its symbol and therefore they no longer had the fact.
“It is a heathen notion that I have got their religion,” protested Raymond. “They never had any religion.”
“It is religion to them,” said Arabella. “Religion is faith. Religion is a conviction of the soul.”
“True religion is a revelation to the mind direct from God,” said Mr. Morton, didactically. “The name doth not befit the hideous pagan follies of the Indians.”
She did not feel qualified to argue; she only said vaguely with a certain primness, in contrast with her method of addressing the young men:—