Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/196

114 It is an interesting proposition to review the elementary facts a]id influences which set on foot and on the high seas these expeditions to Oregon in the name and for the propagation of the Christian religion. The history of the church presents many remarkable examples of the lofty self-sacrifice of great men in both the Catholic and Protestant divisions of its membership from the time of Paul, the greatest of them all, down to this expedition to the wilderness of Oregon seventy-two years ago. But with these Oregon missionary expeditions, either by land or sea, no others can be compared. Paul did not go to preach to the barbarians of Scythia; to heathen in the wilderness two thousand miles distant from the men of his own blood and education, but to men of education like himself. The Puritans did not come to America to convert the heathen, but to get away from their persecutors in another branch of the church. And they had not been in America one year until Capt. Miles Standish was purging the evil from the unappreciative red skins in a most irreverent manner. So much so that the good pastor of the flock at Leyden on hearing of the slaughter of the Indians, wrote the militant captain a letter in which he expressed the pious wish: "Oh how happy a thing had it been, had you converted some, before you killed any."

We cannot for a moment compare the trials of the Oregon missionaries with the awful persecution the Christians were subjected to in Rome when they were enslaved and cast to the lions in circus arena to make a holiday for the worse than barbarian savages; but when we consider the courage, toil, dangers and sacrifices, such heroines as the wives of Whitman, Spalding, Leslie, Walker and Eells were compelled to endure in riding horseback through an Indian country over mountains, plains and desert for two thousand miles to make their homes among savage tribes in a wilderness to teach the gospel and show the untutored heathen a better way. plant the light of Christianity on the Pacific coast, and lay the foundations for great states, when all this is taken into account, a far greater feat of sacrifice and heroism, than the Lausanne voyage—where else in all the wide world can anything equal to it be found.

It is something for an Oregonian to be proud of, especially an Oregonian who takes an interest in the history of his state, that no matter what strife and bickerings the missionaries had between Protestant and Catholic, there is no instance where either side did not as occasion offered, always act the part of the Good Samaritan to the native red man. And it is furthermore something for every citizen to remember with .just pride in his state, that in every stage and phase of its existence from the date of an organized society, Oregon has led the procession in the unique, the original and the progressive in missions, education, politics and state building.

How were these wonderful movements by land and sea to plant Christianity on the Oregon country brought about? What was the exciting cause? Why should these noble men and women, willing to sacrifice life and everything dear to mankind go to far distant Oregon:

"And pierce the Barean Wilderness"

to plant the banner of the cross? Why pass the tribes between the Missouri and the Rocky mountains and go a thousand miles beyond the Blackfeet rascals that needed Christianizing worse than any other equal number of murdering robbers on the face of the earth? It is the duty of the historian to find out. if possible, what was the moving cause.