308 REVEREND EZRA FISHER
priests herald the stereotyped reproach through community, both savage and civilized: "These men are not ministers. See, they work and trade and live like other men." "We are the founders of schools and are always ready to minister to your afflictions and care for your souls."
Can there be some method devised whereby we can have forwarded several numbers of some good religious periodicals of our own denomination, and some of the publications of the A. B. Publication Society adapted to Sunday schools and to vindicating our own denominational peculiarities and breathing a spirit of devotion and Christian philanthropy? Books of all kinds are eagerly sought for and Sunday schools can easily be sustained where ten or twelve children can be found suffici- ently contiguous. I have several times written relative to the best and cheapest way of sustaining your missionaries in Ore- gon. Such is the feeble and scattered condition of the settle- ments that your missionaries must be sustained principally from your Board, or they must sustain themselves. Yet there is great hope that a few years will change the aspect of things in this respect. When the people once see the happy effects of a devoted ministry, they will cheerfully contribute to its support, and be blessed in so doing. When the time comes that a fair competition in trade takes the place of oppressive monopoly, industry will probably be as amply rewarded in this as in any other part of the nation, and we all hope that day is near. None but those who have experienced it can tell the inconveniences and privations of a new country so far removed from civilization. But really our early settlers have performed their part nobly, and are still contending undis- mayed with obstacles which would be regarded almost in- surmountable in the old states. On arriving here the few people of this country were all poor and for the past three years they have brought almost all their breadstuff 125 miles in canoes and open boats, making a trip in 10 or 15 days and camping out in the open air through all their jour-
