Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 182=226.= a Plea for the Indians
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The light of the great council-fire—its blaze once illumined the entire country we now call our own—is faintly gleaming out its unsteady and dying rays. Our fathers were guests, and warmed themselves by its hospitable rays; now we are lords, and rule with an iron hand over those who received kindly, and entertained generously, the wanderer who came from afar to worship his God according to his own will. The very hearth where moulder the ashes of this once never-ceasing fire, is becoming desolate, the decaying embers sometimes starting into a brief brilliancy, and then fading into a gloom more sad, more silent, than ever. Soon will be scattered, as by the winds of heaven, the last ashes that remain. Think of it, O legislator! as thou standest in the Capitol, the great council-hall of thy country; plead for them, "upon whose pathway death's dark shadow falls."
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=Mary E. Moragne,[54] 1815-.=
From "The Huguenot Town."