n the tribes, all of whom had
different dialects. The audience listened in silence while he told
them of the goodness and compassion of the Great Spirit; how it
grieved him to see his children at war among themselves, and how he,
Cecil, had been sent to warn them to forsake their sins and live
better lives. Long familiarity with the Indians had imparted to him
somewhat of their manner of thinking and speaking; his language had
become picturesque with Indian imagery, and his style of oratory had
acquired a tinge of Indian gravity. But the intense and vivid
spirituality that had ever been the charm of his eloquence was in it
still. There was something in his words that for the moment, and
unconsciously to them, lifted his hearers to a higher plane. When he
closed there was upon them that vague remorse, that dim desire to be
better, that indefinable wistfulness, which his earnest, tender words
never failed to arouse in his hearers.

When he lifted his hands at the close of his "talk," and prayed that
the Great Spirit might pity them, that he might take away from them
the black and wicked heart of war and hate and give them the new heart
of peace and love, the silence was almost breathless, broken only by
the unceasing roar of the falls and the solemn pleading of the
missionary's voice.

He left them and returned through the deepening shadows to his lodge.
There he flung himself on the couch of furs the old Indian woman had
spread for him. Fatigued with the long ride of the day and the heavy
draught his address had made on an overtaxed frame, he tried to
sleep.

But he could not. The buildings of the town of Wishram across the
river, so like the buildings of the white man, had awakened a thousand
memories of home. Vivid pictures of his life in New England and in the
cloisters of Magdalen came before his sleepless eyes. The longing for
the refined and pleasant things that had filled his life rose strong
and irrepressible within him. Such thoughts were never entirely absent
from his mind, but at times they seemed to dominate him completely,
driving him into a perfect fever of unrest and discontent. After
tossing for hours on his couch, he arose and went out into the open
air.

The stars were bright; the moon flooded the wide canyon with lustre;
the towering walls rose dim and shadowy on either side of the river
whose waters gleamed white in the moonlight; the solemn roar of the
falls filled the silence of the night.