Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/319



CORRESPONDENCE 293

part of Missouri and ... a very considerable number of Baptists from Iowa. . . . We have some few who have been accustomed to work in prayer meetings and Sabbath schools and would like to see the ministry devoted to their appropriate calling, but as yet very little can be realized by way of ministerial support. Yet I think the time is near at hand when the brethren will take a gospel view of the subject and carry out the gospel plan. We greatly need a few working brethren located at favoured points for business and influence in Oregon. It is not difficult to see where those points will be. Such brethren as could engage in farming, lumbering, mechanic arts, such as are indispensable to a new country, and in the salmon fisheries will find that a small capital judiciously in- vested, with industry, would soon enable them to rise to compe- tency and probably to affluence. I have never seen a country where, at so early a period in its history, so many avenues are opened to reward the industrious as are found in Oregon . . We greatly need a few efficient brethren who have formed their habits east of the Alleghany Range- It is as easy for brethren to come by water direct to the mouth of the Columbia, to Vancouvers Island or Pugets Sound, which are certainly among the most favored points in our country, as for the inhabitants of Missouri to cross the Rocky Mountains by ox teams. The time has already come when money or merchandise will buy neat stock at no very extravigant prices in New York or Massachusetts, Who- ever can reach the Sandwich Islands will be able soon to find a passage to the mouth of the Columbia.

I wrote you in my last that we greatly need two good teach- ers. My reasons are these: 1. I think they will undoubtedly be able to sustain themselves. 2. The Romans are now very industrious in attempting to occupy every important point with a school. I was credibly informed that a proposition was recently made by a priest to the proprietors of Portland, the highest point which merchant vessels reach on the Wil- lamette, to build a church and establish a permanent school