Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/261

 CORRESPONDENCE 249 sented, and we took up a collection of $25.35, which we shall apply to that object and, as you have now an educational department to the Home Mission Society, if it is consistent with your rules, you will credit this amount and charge it to Brother Post as part of his fare from San Francisco to Oregon City. I think we shall be able to raise $100 or $150 more with- out materially interfering with my official duties, if these are not a part of them, and reach the Sound so as to visit most of the important settlements in Washington Territory and return by the middle of December, which will give me five or six weeks of exposure to the heavy rains of the winter, unless it should be unusually mild. But the cause of our blessed Lord demands this service and I shall leave the event with Him and explore that territory as soon as I have performed the other service. To human probability, a failure of securing Brother Post to this station would prove a calamity too great for us to sustain in Oregon, although our brethren do not justly appreciate the importance of this enterprise upon the future interests of the denomination on the Pacific Coast. Our yearly meeting with the Oregon City church has just closed. The meetings were well attended, even to a crowded house on the Sabbath ; at all the services the congregations were attentive and solemn, even to weeping, in numbers of instances ; yet we have learned of no cases of conversion. Brother Johnson preached in the morning; Brother Chandler at 3 P. M., and I in the evening. The Sabbath before, I preached and baptized a young brother who has been led to submit to the Messiah's reign within the last three months. The Sabbath school and Bible class in this church are still quite interesting, although we are destitute of teachers. Mrs. Fisher is the only permanent teacher in the female classes. Whenever I am at home, I superintend the school and teach the male Bible class. Since Brother Chandler closed his labors with the church, Brother Johnson is our supply, but his health is so poor that he can perform no pastoral labors. I will here introduce another subject. The long expected