Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/833

782 With the going-out of the provisional government there was unloosed almost the last grasp of the Mission political influence. The head and front of this power for several years had been Abernethy. He had stood high with the Methodists, the largest religious denomination in Oregon, and by a certain smoothness of face, of manner, and of soft brown hair over a sloping forehead, had created the impression of mild, almost weak amiability, rather than of any intellectual force. I have shown, however, with what pertinacity he could plot and plan against his British commercial or other rivals. His dislike of the western men was scarcely less, because he could not rule them, and because they snapped their fingers at Mission influence. Like many another of the school in which he had been trained, he believed the Lord was on the side of professors of religion, and that if they obtained the advantage of other men, not of their belief, the Lord was rejoiced thereat, because the righteous shall inherit the earth. This belief made it right for the missionary party, of which he was the real head, to practise that underhanded policy, in certain cases, which when indulged in by men of the world is called dishonesty. In these disingenuous measures Abernethy was the prime mover; but the fear of injuring his business or his position as governor kept him silent. He was by nature, too, a quiet man, whose opinions were made known by what he did rather than by what he said. For a few years following the change in Oregon affairs, he accumulated money; but he failed to keep the fortune circumstances threw into his lap. He bought everything that offered, whether he could pay for it or not, and when reaction came, lost all that he had made, besides being heavily in