scoundrels and heathen because they fail to see things as we see them."

"But you would not defend, surely, their plotting to use the savages
against their neighbors--against helpless women and children. That must be
heathenish to any mind."

"Defend it? No! I do not defend any acts of theirs. Rid your mind of the
idea that because a man tries to understand a thing he therefore defends
it. But I can see how they would defend it to their own consciences--just
as these thrifty Whig farmers hereabout explain in their own minds as
patriotic and public-spirited their itching to get hold of Johnson's
Manor. Try and look at things in this light. Good and bad are relative
terms; nothing is positively and unchangeably evil. Each group of men has
its own little world of reasons and motives, its own atmosphere, its own
standard of right and wrong. If you shut your eyes, and condemn or praise
these wholly, without first striving to comprehend them, you may or may
not do mischief to them; you assuredly injure yourself."

Thus, and at great length, spoke the philosophical colonel. I could not
help suspecting that he had too open a mind to be a very valuable fighter,
and, indeed, this proved to be true. He subsequently built some good and
serviceable forts along the Mohawk, one of which to this day bears his
name, but he attained no distinction as a soldier in the field.

But, none the less, his words impressed me greatly. What he said had never
been put to me in clear form before, and at twenty-seven a man's mind is
in that receptive frame, trembling upon the verge of the meditative
stage, when the presentation of new ideas like these often marks a
distinct turn in the progress and direction of his thoughts. It seems
strange to confess it, but I still look back to that May day of 1776 as