Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/112

 96 Charles Henry Carey a good meeting. Eight tents on the ground, some of them very small. Perhaps eighty hearers in the largest con- gregation. It is the day of small things, yet I hope greater and better things will soon follow. Sunday night a poor, miserable sinner made his confession of guilt and sin. He had murdered in different places, in the state, and been associated with gamblers and, indeed, every club of the vicious which came within his reach, so that all crimes were common — highway robbery and murder excepted, all shielded by avowed infidelity. Such a confession I have never heard before. He left the grounds on Monday morning at the close of the meeting with an humbled spirit and a broken heart. Our symp- athies and prayers will follow him. Tuesday night. We reached Willamette Falls. The Secular affairs of the Mission are again upon my hands, and by the by, the Mission is more known as a secular concern than anything else. Wednesday 10. Busy writing preparing letters for friends in the states. Thursday 11. Today we made a bargain with Mr. Beers to sell him the farm which he occupies, with the stock, tools, &c, at the appraisal of Messrs. Force and Cook. 14 This sale puts a heavy concern off of our hands. We soon shall be able to dismiss Mr Beers from the ser- vices of the Mission; whenever the present crops are secured and disposed of by mutual arrangement, his support from the Mission is to cease. This family is a large one — wife and six children. His salary and table expenses have been nearly eight hundred dollars a year. I gave him out of his purchase one thousand dollars as an equivalent for his claim on the Board to be returned to the place of his former residence in the states. I find a disposition in our laymen to return, unless they can get about what it would cost the Board to return them. By paying them here we save the expense of a delay for 14 Probably Amos Cook, of the Peoria party of 1839-40.