, but it was the
fashion, and it still continues. They were celebrating the bounty of
Providence, and it was meet that the liberality of man should be in
harmony with it. Felix, grave and decorous, as became the importance
of the occasion, and his assistant, multiplied themselves into a
thousand waiters, sedulous to anticipate the wants of the host and his
guests.

The conversation, which at first ran in several distinct rills being
confined to each one's immediate neighborhood mostly, and interrupted
by the serious business of dinner, seemed gradually, after a time, to
unite its various streams into one common current. The attention of
the doctor was first attracted from an unsuccessful attempt to quote
to Mrs. Bernard Shakspeare's famous recipe for cooking a beef-steak by
an observation of Mr. Robinson to Mr. Armstrong, at whose left hand
he sat, the seat at the right being occupied by Mrs. Bernard, next to
whom sat the doctor.

"The results," said the minister, "furnish, I fear, little
encouragement for the future. Unless divine grace shall manifest
itself in a more signal manner than has heretofore been vouchsafed,
they seemed destined to die in their sins."

"Is there, then, no escape from a doom so horrible?" inquired the
low voice of Mr. Armstrong. "After being hunted from their ancient
possessions, and denied even the graves of their fathers, must they
perish everlastingly?"

"Can the clay say to the potter, 'What doest thou?'" said Mr.
Robinson. "He maketh one vessel to honor and another to dishonor.
Repeated attempts have been made to civilize and Christianize them,
but in vain. Whom He will He hardeneth."

Mr. Armstrong sighed, and another sigh, so low it was unheard, stole
from the bosom of his daughter.

"You are speaking of the Indians?" inquired the doctor.

"Yes," said Mr. Robinson, "and of the failure of all attempts by
Christians to ameliorate their condition."

"And are you surprised it should be so?" inquired the doctor.

"The ways of Providence are inscrutable," replied Mr. Robinson. "I
pretend not to explain the reasons why they are deaf to the pleadings
of the Gospel."

"What," cried the doctor, slightly altering his favorite author,
"'hath not an Indian eyes? Hath not an Indian hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt
with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the
same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and su