“Ay,” interrupted the pastor, “that’s true. I have two reasons for wishing to have him here. The primary one is, that he may get good to his immortal soul; and then he understands English so well that I want him to become my interpreter; for although I understand the Cree language pretty well now, I find it exceedingly difficult to explain the doctrines of the Bible to my people in it. But pardon me, I interrupted you.”
“I was only going to say,” resumed Jacques, “that I made up my mind to stay with him; but they wanted a man to bring the winter packet here, so, as they pressed me very hard, an’ I had nothin’ particular to do, I ’greed and came, though I would rather ha’ stopped; for Redfeather an’ I ha’ struck up a friendship togither—a thing that I would never ha’ thought it poss’ble for me to do with a red Injin.”
“And why not with a red Indian, friend?” inquired the pastor, while a shade of sadness passed over his mild features, as if unpleasant thoughts had been roused by the hunter’s speech.
“Well, it’s not easy to say why,” rejoined the other. “I’ve no partic’lar objection to the red-skins. There’s only one man among them that I bears a grudge agin, and even that one I’d rayther avoid than otherwise.”
“But you should forgive him, Jacques. The Bible tells us not only to bear our enemies no grudge, but to love them and to do them good.”
The hunter’s brow darkened. “That’s impossible, sir,” he said; “I couldn’t do him a good turn if I was to try ever so hard. He may bless his stars that I don’t want to do him mischief; but to love him, it’s jist imposs’ble.”
“With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible,” said the pastor solemnly.
Jacques’s naturally philosophic though untutored mind saw the force of this. He felt that God, who had formed his soul, his body, and the wonderfully complicated machinery and objects of nature, which were patent to his observant and reflective mind wherever he went, must of necessity be equally able to alter, influence, and remould them all according to His will. Common-sense was sufficient to teach him this; and the bold hunter exhibited no ordinary amount of common-sense in admitting the fact at once, although in the case under discussion (the loving of his enemy) it seemed utterly impossible to his feelings and experience. The frown, therefore, passed from his brow, while he said respectfully, “What you say, sir, is true; I believe though I can’t feel it. But I s’pose the reason I niver felt much drawn to the red-skins is, that all the time I lived in the settlements I was used to hear them called and treated as thievin’ dogs, an ‘when I com’d among them I didn’t see much to alter my opinion. Here an’ there I have found one or two honest Injins, an’ Redfeather is as true as steel; but the most o’ them are no better than they should be. I s’pose I don’ think much o’ them just because they are red-skins.”
“Ah, Jacques, you will excuse me if I say that there is not much sense in that reason. An Indian cannot help being a red man any more than you can help being a white one, so that he ought not to be despised on that account. Besides, God made him what he is, and to despise the work of God, or to undervalue it, is to despise God Himself. You may indeed despise, or rather abhor, the sins that red men are guilty of; but if you despise them on this ground, you must much more despise white men, for they are guilty of greater iniquities than Indians are. They have more knowledge, and are therefore more inexcusable when they sin; and anyone who has travelled much must be aware that, in regard to general wickedness, white men are at least quite as bad as Indians. Depend upon it, Jacques, that there will be Indians found in heaven at the last day as well as white men. God is no respecter of persons.”
“I niver thought much on that subject afore, sir,” returned the hunter; “what you say seems reasonable enough. I’m sure an’ sartin, any way, that if there’s a red-skin in heaven at all, Redfeather will be there, an’ I only hope that I may be there too to keep him company.”