Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/380

 372 SPALDING LETTERS the bread of eternal life, unpitied. Call my anxiety that I coldly expressed for the poor heathen when in the states, enthusiasm, madness or any other name which closed up the pulpit in my beloved Seminary against me as I passed last spring, and gave occasion for my beloved father in theology and one of the professors to absent themselves from the cele- bration of our departure, held in the Cong. Church of Cincin- natti; the snowbanks of the Rocky mountains did not kill it, the hot blasts of the sandy desert did not wilt it, but the actual sight of what fancy only pictured before, told me in voice of thunder, I had not pleaded the cause of the heathen, only attempted it. Oh that our churches at home could see and feel what their missionaries witness every day on heathen ground ! There would be a very different story told in their pulpits, and a very different one told on their treasurer's books. For particulars respecting the journey I must refer you to my letter to Mr. Green, if published, which occupies four or five sheets and consequently cannot be written over to every individual friend. I will however give a brief sketch, and first, you will please connect the following points with a line on some map which will give our route, very nearly. From Liberty, Mo., 300 miles above St. Louis, up the south side of Missouri river to mouth of Platte, Lat. 41 degrees, longitude 95 degrees, up the north side of Platte to the forks Lat. 41 degrees, Long. 102 degrees up the north fork to Ft. William of N. F. Co., foot of the mountains, Lat. 41 degrees 50 minutes, Long. 106 degrees, 40 minutes. This fort has been built three or four years, raises grain, and have fine cattle. Up the west branch still, till a few days of rendezvous, a place appointed this year on Green river, a branch of the Colorado, to meet all the trappers perhaps 300 of the Co., in the mountains ; also the Indians that came to trade. Then about 42 degrees, 56 minutes, Long. 110 degrees, 5 minutes, S. W. into the borders of Mexico onto the waters of Timpanagos or Salt Lake, so called from its depositing great quantities of salt, Lat. 41 de- grees, 50 minutes, Long. Ill degrees, 25 minutes, south of this lake. I have just learned there is a fine country of land, well