assume larger proportions than they are really entitled to; he was in truth a desiccated Dominie Sampson, that later stood as a butt before the wits of Fort Vancouver; a thin, bony form, surmounted by thin, bony features beaming in happy, good-natured unconsciousness of his lack of knowledge, particularly of knowledge of the things of this world. He was a pious Pierrot, a man in stature, but a child in mind and manners. Yet this personage had his admirers, to whom the faults of mind and body beside the more finished forms of the ungodly were but the graces of awkwardness; just as the constrained motions of the hero, who having lost a limb in battle now hobbles on crutches, appear to the worshippers of war the poetry of motion as compared with the amblings of the effeminate city fop.
Together at this outset they were well enough mated, though when they talked religion in company their discourse was as interesting and instructive as would be the witnessing of an interview between Father Tom and the Pope. Often sensitiveness is the enemy of success; bravery in brass wins where polish fails. Not that Jason lacks bravery; for as courage was needed it came to him with high resolve and all attendant sacrifice, over which there was no thick covering of ass's hide. But in both, tensely strung, were expectation, will, and conscience; and there were thousands who of each with Cicero would say, "Homo sine fuco et fallaciis."
A missionary meeting was held in New York the 10th of October, 1833, to arrange for the early departure of the volunteers; and six days after, the sum of three thousand dollars for an outfit was voted by the board. It was then further decided that two laymen should be selected to attend and assist the missionaries; and the latter were to begin their work at once by travelling and raising funds, preaching the crusade as far south as Washington, then working
