Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/454



446 REVEREND EZRA FISHER

and they and his neighbors, wanted to hear preaching and he would make his house a comfortable home for any respectable minister who would come and preach one sermon and give him ten dollars for his part.

Then, with me, take a bird's eye view of the Willamette, whose settlements spread over a territory 180 miles in length and from 20 to sixty miles in width, in almost every settle- ment of which are found one or more members of our order surrounded with men of all religious sects and of no relig- ious creed, and exposed to all the disorganizing influences peculiar to a country where preaching is but occasional and Sabbath day visiting and hunting of loose cattle and wild game are common, and at the same time large portions of the men are going to and coming from the mines. Can this be regarded as any other than a missionary field in the most unqualified sense of the term? Then turn your attention to the Umpqua Valley, in which are now two organized coun- ties, 255 and it is said that it is now as thickly peopled as the Willamette, with no evangelical minister to break the bread of life, 256 where character is formed with unexampled rapid- ity, and no means are wanting to draw the youth into the most abandoned habits which the temptations of gold can in- spire in the absence of the moral influence of the Bible (for men will soon neglect their Bibles if the gospel is not preach- ed), and here we must say is a missionary field. Immediately south of the Umpqua River, gold diggings begin and that portion of the mines between this and! the Chasty (Shasta) 257 Mountains, a distance of 140 to 150 miles from north to south, is included in the Oregon field. Here thousands of our countrymen are constantly engaged in digging gold, with no one to minister to them the excellencies of that gos- pel which is incomparably more valuable than gold. With

255 Douglas and Umpqua Counties, the former of which had just been or- ganized, and Jackson County, which was also organized in January, 1852, comprised the Rogue River Valley. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., II:7io, 712.

256 This statement is probably correct.

257 Shasta, a corruption of the French "chaste," was first applied to the moun- tain by early American travelers. Bancroft, Hist, of Calif., VII 1440.