crude drawings into finished pictorial emblems. A copy in the Oregon Historical Society belongs to this later period. It is printed on both sides of two large boards. Since it was engraved in Paris, with the title and legends in French, it may be one of those issued under the supervision of Father Blanchet while he was in Paris in 1844. None of the pictures or accounts of the Catholic Ladder which the writer has seen conform to the description given to Dr. Whitman by members of the Wilkes expedition in 1841, as recorded in a letter from Whitman to the American Board, November 11, 1841:
If you see Mr. Hale or Mr. Drayton of the U. S. Exploring Squadron (& perhaps others may tell you the same) They can describe to you the picture of a tree hanging in Chief Factor McLoughlin's room at Vancouver which represents all Protestants as the withered ends of the several branches of Papacy falling off down into infernal society & flames as represented at the bottom. This gives a good idea of their manner of instruction to the Indians as drawn out in manuscript & given to them accompanied with oral instruction of a similar character. The possession of one of these manuscripts by an Indian binds him not to hear any more the instruction of Protestants so far as observation goes.
A picture of the Catholic Ladder, with an explanation of its symbolism by C. B. Bagley, may be found in his Early Catholic Missions in Old Oregon, volume II.
In the religious rivalry and hostility then existing between the sects, the success of the Catholic missionaries in converting the heathen was a matter of great concern to Spalding and his co-workers. To combat the so-called heretical teachings of the priests Spalding decided to make an appeal to the natives through pictures, and invented a chart or ladder to show what he considered the evils of the Catholic church. Spalding explains its meaning in a letter to the board February 12, 1846, as follows:
Two meetings on the sabbath where I exhibited the Protestant Chart which by the way I will here describe & the cause of it. The Catholics in this country have had printed (I suppose in the states) a vast No of small charts on which the Road to Heaven is exhibited & from which Luther is represented as branching off in a road that leads to hell. These as also brass medals representing Christ on the cross are scattered profusely among the Indians of the Mountains & among as many of this people & Kayuse & the people of Cimakain, as they can induce by the assurance of Heaven promise of wordly gain, threats &c, to accept them. They tell the people that Luther laid down his
