Dear Br. Hill:
I take my pen to make a report of my services in Bloomington, Iowa, and vicinity, for the part of the quarter commencing March 15th and ending May the 23d.
According to my best calculation I have labored eight weeks in the service of the Society and the church at Bloomington and vicinity.
I have preached 15 sermons, delivered one address on the subject of Bible instruction . . . Traveled one hundred and five miles to and from appointments. . . . Have visited and assisted in the revival in Davenport two days Our church has been peculiarly oppressed with pecuniary embarrassments and has paid nothing for any of the benevolent objects, but has paid about thirty dollars for my salary. I have received nothing from auxiliary societies. . . . You will please forward me a draft for fifteen dollars to Clinton Post Office, Oneida Co., New York, in the care of Timothy Taft, and I shall receive it on my arrival.
I feel convinced that I have not rendered the amount of profitable service directly to the cause at Bloomington that I should, had not the subject of the Oregon enterprise agitated my mind and called forth my anxious thoughts, and I trust humble prayers. As it relates to that subject, I have endeavored to look at the privations and difficulties as well as to the beauties of nature,[1] and I can say with some degree of confidence that I desire to set aside all considerations but the will of God and the well being of man in this and all my undertakings. In considering the path of duty I see no field of labor
- ↑ This well reflects the information concerning Oregon which was current in the west at the time this was written. No large immigration had yet gotten into Oregon with wagons, and the journey was an extremely arduous and dangerous one of about six months. On the other hand, reports circulated by travelers and missionaries from the country, and by the debates in Congress of the past few winters, pictured Oregon as an earthly paradise. Bancroft, Hist. of Oregon, Vol. I, passim.
