Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/231

180 of good and evil, and their influence on human affairs, prepared them to accept the Christian belief, but in a sense surprising to their teachers. The principal point in the Methodist faith is the efficacy of prayer, which was impressed upon the minds of the Indians in their first lessons, causing them earnestly and sincerely to strive for that state which they imagined necessary to the working of the spell which was to bring them their hearts' desires. On being disappointed, they lost faith, and reproached their teachers.

Said an Indian to Perkins, "I want a coat. Perkins replied, "You must work and earn one." "Oh," says the neophyte, "I was told if I took your religion, and prayed for what I wanted to have, I should get it. If I am to work for it, I can earn a coat at any time of the Hudson's Bay Company."

On one occasion a chief at the Cascades set adrift a canoe belonging to Daniel Lee in order to sell him one of his own. To secure his friendship and prevent a repetition of the theft, Lee presented him a musket, which so affected the chief that when he met another of the missionaries at Fort Vancouver he assured him that his people now all obeyed Lee's instructions, and as for himself, "his heart was full of pray." They often stopped in the midst of their supplications to demand pay for praying.

In the autumn of 1839 the natives at the Dalles, by this time convinced that prayer did not place them on an equality in worldly goods with their teachers, became so intrusive and committed so many thefts that the missionaries began to fear for their lives; and Daniel Lee took the precaution to provide himself with arms and ammunition from Fort Vancouver, intending to garrison the mission house, and to resist any hostile attempts. To his relief and astonishment on returning to the Dalles he found Mr Perkins in the midst of a "work of God," among the Indians. Several of