Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/374

Rh 1832, or perhaps even earlier, was really the original cause of the missionary movement into Oregon which followed. The earlier parties, however, either did not pass through, or did not remain in the region about the head waters of the Columbia, and it was not until 1840 that the Flatheads began to reap the benefits of religion which the western tribes had been enjoying for several years. In the spring of 1840 Pierre J. De Smet, a Jesuit, left the Missouri at Westport in company with the large party of fur-traders, immigrants, and independent missionaries who crossed the Rocky Mountains in that year. At the rendezvous he was met by a party of Flatheads, who had heard of his arrival, and by them escorted to their country. De Smet was a worthy member of his order. Young, handsome, intellectual, educated, and energetic, he was well fitted to make a favorable impression upon the savages, and to succeed in a field which others had either shunned or abandoned. On becoming acquainted with the Flatheads, he was surprised, as Bonneville, Townsend, and Parker had been, at the similarity between their religious practices and those of his own creed, but this he accepted as a proof of the special power of his religion to impress itself at once upon the minds of the heathen. The evening of his first day among them was closed with a prayer and solemn chant, and prayer was again offered in the morning. On the second day he translated to them, with the aid of an interpreter, the Lord's Prayer, the creed, and the commandments. In a fortnight two thousand Flatheads knew the prayers. In two months six hundred were admitted to baptism.

This gratifying success led De Smet to think of procuring assistance and extending his labors among the savage nations of Oregon. But to his surprise he now for the first time learned of the presence in