Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/401



METHODIST REPORTS WILLAMETTE MISSION 351

branches, were decidedly deleterious to the missionaries themselves ; and if any who have been constantly connect- ed with this business have exerted a happy and Christian influence, it has been in spite of the temporal business in which they have been engaged. To say nothing of the losses which the mission was constantly realizing in its ill-directed efforts to sustain this load of business, it was constantly sinking under the burden ; and every successive effort to relieve it but increased the difficulty under which the mission groaned. Though there may be among us some who have (been) connected with these different branches who are of a different opinion, yet it appears to most of us that the period for disburdening the Oregon Mission of the ponderous load that has been pressing her into the dust may be regarded as a happy epoch in her history. That time has now arrived, and the finances of the mission are brought to a close; and it is hoped that whatever may be her history in the future, she will never again be received, either at home or abroad, in any other light than that of a mission whose business and objects are decidedly of a religious character.

"Perhaps it will be more difficult for the church at home to appreciate the course pursued by our Superin- tendent in reference to the Mission School than in any other branch. The school has always been fostered by Mr. Lee as the darling object of the mission ; but it was impossible for many of us to discover that importance in the school which Mr. Lee always attached to it. Still the hopes of many lingered around the school, unwilling to give it up, believing that it would finally succeed. But after the arrival of Mr. Gary, tracing the history of the school, and pausing at every point to weigh its merits, comparing the present with the past, and contemplating it in all its possible changes for the better, and beholding nothing but darkness in the prospect before it, though to many of us the disbanding of it was an affliction, yet we were constrained to believe that neither policy, reason