CORRESPONDENCE 151
tent till our government treats with them for their lands. They have long been told that the Boston Hy-as Tyee (Chief) will come next year and pay them for their lands till they say their turn-turn (heart) is sick and they do not know but they shall mimmelus (die) before the Boston Hy-as Tyee comes. Our Indian neighbors like to have the Bostons settle among them and give them two or three blankets, a gun or a horse for a section of land and are fond of trading with the Whites, yet they are like children in their tradings with the Whites. They have generally great confidence in the honesty of the Whites till they are aroused to jealousy .by some designing person.
March 24th You will probably learn the state of our Indian relations to a later date than this through the me- dium of the return party who will leave the settlements for the States about the 20th of April, and will probably pass sufficiently near the Cayuse nation to learn the state of the war.
I have just received yours under date of April 1st, 1847, which came to the Islands on board the Medora, and will just state that it affords me great pleasure to learn that God still reigns in your anniversaries. May you ever be able truthfully to adopt the language of the Psalmist, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell to- gether in unity." I sometimes almost envy you those heav- enly entertainments, yet our Heavenly Father has other- wise ordered it and I would not challenge the wisdom of His counsels. Since I commenced this package God has been graciously pleased to give us more than usual intimations that He has not entirely withdrawn His favors from us. Last Lord's day we organized a little feeble church in Clat- sop Plains consisting of seven members, three males and four females, 144 , and on Monday one of my neighbors sent for me to call and see him. I found him laboring under a deep sense of his condemned condition and he said, "I tell you,
144 This church became extinct in a few years. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. 1:8.
