of plains, forest and mountains and brought to the knowledge of civilized men the wealth of a continent. It was the fur trade that produced this combination of instinctive intelligences, and that used the same to promote its own selfish purposes of gain, and which indirectly opened the whole of Northwest America to the light and development of American civilization.

Now mark the difference. Fur trading was not yet confined to Canada and the British American possessions west thereof. There were fur traders from the earliest times, trading with the Indians from Plymouth Rock, Hudson river, Jamestown, St. Louis, and on west to the Rocky mountains. But these were men of a different blood and lineage. The Puritan, the Hollander, the Cavalier and the Spaniard could preach and pray the gospel of salvation to red, black and white man alike; but marry an Indian squaw; never! The Indian was not the native fool the conquering races took him to be. He was not slow to see that the lordly superiority affected by the men of New England and the Ohio valley was in world-wide contrast to the free and easy manners the Frenchman extended to him on the St. Lawrence. The Englishman and the Spaniard made the Indian feel that "between me and thee" there is a great gulf fixed. So it was a fight with the Indian on the south side of the Great Lakes from the beginning; while peace and trade flourished on the north side of those inland seas. The same feeling of ill-suppressed hatred for each other was carried west and over the Rocky mountains into Oregon. The English, Americans and Spaniards had continual wars with the Indians, while the Canadian, French and Scotch worked them for all they were worth and could produce in the fur trade and had no wars at all. Indian wars have cost the United States people thousands upon thousands of lives, five hundred million dollars, and a century of dishonor. Trouble with the Indians never cost the Canadians a thousand dollars, and scarcely a life.

That the fur trade has been a civilizer on the North American continent, cannot be denied. While it carried fire-arms, and intoxicating liquors, and the knowledge of these death-dealing instrumentalities to a benighted, simple-minded and barbarian race, it carried also the knowledge of the power and superiority of trade, education and religion over ignorance and barbarism.

And although the furry skins of wild animals were never an indispensable necessity to civilized man in four-fifths of the earth's inhabited area, yet the idea that dress or trappings of fine furs were the distinguishing marks of wealth and nobility, made a market for these coats of the wild animals roaming in distant and almost impenetrable forests. The vanity of pride and position on one side, and the love of gain upon the other, sent the trapper into far distant wilds, over frowning cliffs and rock-ribbed mountains, traversing lonely marshes and paddling his canoe upon torrential streams, even unto

That the pride and vanity of the rich might be gratified on one side to the gain of the trader and the subsistence of the trapper on the other side. And by all this strife, labor and worry new lands were discovered, settlements made pos

sible, commerce developed, schools and churches established, and what is called civilization evolved.

It may be stated substantially as the truth of history, that otter skins and beaver pelts opened Oregon to civilization, while the discovery of gold performed a like service for California.

CHAPTER V

1834-1845

THE ERA OF EVANGELISM-THE AGITATION OF HALL J. KELLEY-THE QUEST OF THE FLATHEADS FOR THE "BOOK OF HEAVEN -THE COMING OF JASON LEE-THE MARCUS WHITMAN PARTY-THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES-DE SMET, THE GREAT APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS, ANSWERS THE CALL OF THE FLATHEADS THE RIVALRIES AND WORKS OF THESE MEN-THEIR SERVICES TO OREGON AND THE NATION.

It is now seventy-eight years since Jason and Daniel Lee (Methodists), the first Christian missionaries to Oregon, entered the Oregon country to carry out their unselfish work of Christianizing the native Indians. The Lees were followed by Rev. Samuel Parker (Congregationalist) in 1835; by Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife, H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray (all Presbyterians) in 1836; Rev. David Leslie and wife (Methodists) in 1837; Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife and Cushing Eells and wife (Congregationalists) in 1838; Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, vicar-general, and Rev. Modeste Demers (Catholic priests) in 1838; and Peter John De Smet in 1840. These were the pioneer missionaries. Others came after them. The Methodists were specially active, the Methodist general missionary board in the eastern states sending out in 1840 the ship Lausanne, with a large and well equipped force, consisting of Rev. J. H. Frost and wife; Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife; Rev. W. H. Kone and wife; Rev. A. F. Waller and wife; Rev. J. P. Richmond, M. D., and wife; Dr. I. L. Babcock, physician, and wife; George Abernethy (missionary steward) and wife; W. W. Raymond (farmer) and wife; L. H. Judson, cabinet maker, and wife; J. L. Parrish (blacksmith) and wife; James Olley (carpenter) and wife; Hamilton Campbell (carpenter) and wife; Miss C. A. Clark, teacher; Miss Elmira Phelps, teacher; Miss Orpha Lankton, stewardess; Miss A. Phillips, Thomas Adams, an Indian boy and seventeen little children. Along with this company of preachers, teachers, artisans and farmers were sent machinery for the erection of flouring mills, saw mills and all necessary implements for agriculture and house building in a new country, together with a large stock of miscellaneous merchandise. Of this missionary expedition the Catholic bishop of Oregon, who was here when the ship arrived, is said to have remarked: "No missionaries were ever dispatched to represent the various sects in any land under more favorable auspices than were the ladies and gentlemen of the Methodist Episcopal church in the wilds of Oregon." The total expense of the expedition cost the Methodist missionary board in New York the sum of $42,000; and the good ship sailed twenty thousand miles-nearly around the globe-to land its unexampled cargo at its appointed destination. Nothing equal to it was ever witnessed before or since in the history of missions by any church. It is a fair illustration to say that the Lausanne was to the Pacific coast in 1840 what the Mayflower was to the Atlantic coast in 1620.

Vol. I-8

It is an interesting proposition to review the elementary facts and influences which set on foot and on the high seas these expeditions to Oregon in the name and for the propagation of the Christian religion. The history of the church presents many remarkable examples of the lofty self-sacrifice of great men in both the Catholic and Protestant divisions of its membership from the time of Paul, the greatest of them all, down to this expedition to the wilderness of Oregon seventy-two years ago. But with these Oregon missionary expeditions, either by land or sea, no others can be compared. Paul did not go to preach to the barbarians of Scythia; to heathen in the wilderness two thousand miles distant from the men of his own blood and education, but to men of education like himself. The Puritans did not come to America to convert the heathen, but to get away from their persecutors in another branch of the church. And they had not been in America one year until Capt. Miles Standish was purging the evil from the unappreciative red skins in a most irreverent manner. So much so that the good pastor of the flock at Leyden on hearing of the slaughter of the Indians, wrote the militant captain a letter in which he expressed the pious wish: "Oh how happy a thing had it been, had you converted some, before you killed any."

We cannot for a moment compare the trials of the Oregon missionaries with the awful persecution the Christians were subjected to in Rome when they were enslaved and cast to the lions in circus arena to make a holiday for the worse than barbarian savages; but when we consider the courage, toil, dangers and sacrifices, such heroines as the wives of Whitman, Spalding, Leslie, Walker and Eells were compelled to endure in riding horseback through an Indian country over mountains, plains and desert for two thousand miles to make their homes among savage tribes in a wilderness to teach the gospel and show the untutored heathen a better way, plant the light of Christianity on the Pacific coast, and lay the foundations for great states, when all this is taken into account, a far greater feat of sacrifice and heroism, than the Lausanne voyage-where else in all the wide world can anything equal to it be found.

It is something for an Oregonian to be proud of, especially an Oregonian who takes an interest in the history of his state, that no matter what strife and bickerings the missionaries had between Protestant and Catholic, there is no instance where either side did not as occasion offered, always act the part of the Good Samaritan to the native red man. And it is furthermore something for every citizen to remember with just pride in his state, that in every stage and phase of its existence from the date of an organized society, Oregon has led the procession in the unique, the original and the progressive in missions, education, politics and state building.

How were these wonderful movements by land and sea to plant Christianity on the Oregon country brought about? What was the exciting cause? Why should these noble men and women, willing to sacrifice life and everything dear to mankind go to far distant Oregon:

"And pierce the Barcan Wilderness"

to plant the banner of the cross? Why pass the tribes between the Missouri and the Rocky mountains and go a thousand miles beyond the Blackfeet rascals that needed Christianizing worse than any other equal number of murdering robbers on the face of the earth? It is the duty of the historian to find out, if possible, what was the moving cause.

Left Hand-ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, Copied from his book of travels
Right Hand-REV. WILBUR FISK, President of Wesleyan University

A GREAT PROCLAMATION

Who will respond to the call from beyond the Rocky Mountains?

We are for having a mission established there at once. Let two suitable men, possessing the spirit of the martyrs, throw themselves into the Flathead nation, live with them, learn their language, and preach Christ to them. Money shall be forthcoming. I will be bondsman for the Church. All we want is men. Who will go?

WILBUR FISK. Wesleyan University, March 9, 1833