Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/392

Rh to turn farmers and traders? In this respect the Presbyterian missionaries differed from the Methodists, and were not prepared to accept the views of their own board of commissioners.

In the midst of these perplexities there came upon them two unexpected events. In the first place, the board ordered the discontinuance of Lapwai and Waiilatpu stations, the missionary efforts to be confined to the Chemakane mission, and Spalding to return to the States. The order was received late in September 1842, and a meeting was immediately called to consider it. Whitman and Spalding were much opposed to abandoning their stations, while Walker and Eells were in favor of carrying out instructions. Whitman urged the strong probability, that as soon as Lapwai and Waiilatpu should be left, the Catholics would come in and possess the fruits of their labors, both temporal and spiritual. On the other hand, there was the possibility that the Catholic influence might overcome them though they remained, and drive them from the field nolens volens. Then there was the objection of the board to sustaining two stations which were never to become self-supporting. How was it to be overcome?

The second event to which I alluded furnished Whitman with a reply to the arguments of his brethren. This was the arrival, overland, of an immigration of over a hundred persons, men, women, and children, invited to make homes in Oregon by the government of the United States, and expecting to receive as a reward for their patriotism a liberal grant of land in the fertile Valley Willamette. "If these hundred have come this year," said Whitman, "more will come the next. These have left their wagons at Fort Hall, but very soon others will discover that they can bring