CORRESPONDENCE 433
miles below this place. I contemplate commencing- monthly preaching at Portland in a few weeks, if my health will al- low me to perform the labor. 239 Many of the men of the territory are in the mines. Brother Snelling is among the number, so that we have but little preaching in the country. This spring I hardly dare contemplate our condition of feeble churches left without pastors while I am confined within the walls of a school house. I am sometimes half resolved to leave the school in the hands of such a teacher as we can se- cure, and travel through the valley, visit, preach and collect funds for the school building. But we fear the consequences of a change in teachers before our expected teachers arrive. We commenced our spring quarter today with 40 scholars, notwithstanding the gold excitement and the removal for a time of nearly all the remnant of our large boys for farm- ing purposes during the summer. The number will increase for the ensuing two weeks. Our money has been drained off to build up eastern cities and farming is greatly neglected for the mines. Consequently it is difficult to collect for car- rying forward our building and labor is extravagantly high. That work must progress slowly this summer. We hope to make a special effort in the fall for this work ; I fear not be- fore, unless I leave the school next quarter. We more need an efficient preacher as colporter for the A. B. Publication Soc., who would do some work for the Bible Society, than an agent for the Bible Society to the neglect of the Publica- tion Society. But if the Publication Society do not do this work through their agent, we will be glad to see your pro- posed enterprise take effect. Should the Bible Soc. send us an agent, or Bibles, they will do well to send a large pro- portion of large Bibles suitable for family Bibles. There has been an inquiry for them for a long time, when small Bibles cannot be sold for cost. Every evangelical society has Bibles in the country and the people have generally obtained Bibles
210 The author apparently soon began holding occasional services in Portland in the Congregational meeting-house. They were continued until O ctob *l> 1854, when a Baptist minister settled in Portland. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Or*. II: 14.
