Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/154

 142 REVEREND EZRA FISHER must be identified with the school till a suitable teacher could be found. In this work I think I do not exaggerate when I say that I deliberately sacrificed in dollars and cents more than half the little property I then had, most of which I had dug with my own hands out of the California sandbars and gulches in the space of eight weeks. I knew the Board, in view of all the circumstances, approved of my teaching, preaching Saturdays and Sabbaths and collecting funds when- ever opportunities presented ; not in the abstract, but from ne- cessity, just as the farmer in a new country makes his sled and his plow and repairs his clock. I understand, too, that your Board had somewhat departed from their ordinary course by appointing for said school two teachers and preachers in the same men, paying for their outfit and sustaining them in part in this two-fold relation. I looked upon this, under the cir- cumstances, as the best thing that could be done, although I regretted the necessity of giving one man the work of two or three. Upon entering upon the work of exploring agent I did contemplate doing something for the school and I think I wrote you on that subject, and I had the impression that I re- ceived from you in substance this reply, that the Board could not consent that their agents should enter into the services of any other society so as to interfere with their official duties as agents. But, upon referring to your letters, I find nothing on that subject except the instructions given in connection with the two commissions, the one in Nov. '51 and the other in Apr. '52. I understood those instructions would justify me in co- operating with any benevolent society, whenever it could be done without sacrificing the interests of the Baptist Home Mission Soc. In this work which I have performed I have studiously avoided encroaching upon the time and duties of every de- partment of my agency. Probably in doing this work I have not consumed the amount of two days' time, when I could have done anything for the Mission Society. Almost every man in Oregon had formerly known me as identified with