Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/79

Rh In their association of fifteen or sixteen churches, he knew of no church which had preaching more than one Sabbath a month and there were but two ministers who devoted much time to their calling. Probably the majority of Baptists throughout the state had little or no sympathy with the benevolent societies of the denomination.

His efforts were chiefly confined to his own church. He preached, however, when possible, in neighboring places and visited sufficiently among the churches of the state to keep informed of their needs. He assisted in the organization of the General Association of Baptists in Indiana, in 1833, and of a state Baptist Education Society in 1835.

At the close of his pastorate in Indianapolis, March 22, 1835, many discouraging conditions remained, but the church was in harmony, had a Sunday school of ninety or more members, and would, he believed, furnish half the salary of a minister the next year.

Ezra Fisher continued to make his home in Indianapolis until April 12, 1836, the last year acting as agent of the American Sunday School Union for Indiana. Because of a wish to work directly for the Baptist denomination, he declined the invitation to serve another year, and, because his health would not admit of the sedentary life, he also refused a position as the head of Franklin College, soon to go into operation at Franklin, Indiana.

Under commission of the Home Mission Society, he again went west, this time to Quincy, Ill., to take charge of a church of nine members, worshipping in a small school room. He arrived there May 4, 1836. For the first year only his time was divided between the church at Quincy and one called "Bethany" at Pay son, ten miles southeast.

Supported but in part by the Society, during most of his stay of three and a half years, he was able to live, to use his own words, "only by uniting industry and economy with self-denial." When the brave little church at Quincy was building, he cheerfully taught school to make up the deficit