Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/143

 CORRESPONDENCE

135

which the wayside hearers and professors hold a still greater Do you ask the cause of this declension? I proportion. conceive it is not one but legion. Monthly Sabbaths, and in too many instances no Sabbaths, and visiting represent in a in

great degree

all

Bible reading, as well as almost all religious Sabbath school and Bible classes

the youths.

reading among may be sustained, but

it

is

only the few of our youths be-

longing to religious families who can be induced to become habitual members. Our members are in each church scattered over large

districts

of country, with few conveniences

for

Those bringing their families together on the Lord's day. influence cannot without a sacwho would concentrate their than they can willingly make. then the pastoral relation in the churches, beyond that of preaching on Saturday and Sabbath once in a month to rifice larger

And

a given church, and occasionally visiting the most delinquent members, is merely nominal; we have but two Baptist ministers in Oregon who profess to give themselves to the work of the ministry, and one of them is talking of leaving for the States; the other is laboring at a salary of $300, and that from the States, while clerks' hire is from $600 to $2200 per

Our families are supported as Paul supported himself while laboring for the Corinthian Church. And then the question of slavery, as well as that of tem-

annum.

perance,..must needs be noted, both in

and out of the church,

we approach the period of the adoption of a state constitution, and as we hear of the wrongs endured by the Kansas as

on account of their love for the inalienable rights of large portion of our members are from slave-holding and a larger portion are professedly opposed to slavery,

patriots

A

man. states,

"but

all

their sympathies are with the South."

What

a para-

dox!

And

then, too, many of our revivals have singing as the instrument more than humiliation, prayer, the reading of the word of God and the preached word. With such a train of

causes,

what could we expect other than the sad

results

we