of the Oregon Institute & we indulged the hope of being able to retain his services until we should have a principal from the States but having appropriated another part of this report exclusively to the Oregon Institute I shall leave it for the present.
While attending an extra meeting on the Rickreall I became acquainted with the case of a Mr G c who came to this country some years since a man of wealth and if not skeptical as to religion in every sence could only claim to be a Universalist. His infidel friends were very anxious to have it understood that he died in peace. But it so happened just that time that one of our brethren an acquaintance of his was passing at the time and obtained access to the dying man. He had cursed his Maker many times during his illness, and now "Lord have mercy" was his constant cry: thus he died and no ray of light sheds its cheerful radiance upon the dreary gloom of his grave. Our Camp meeting for Salem commenced on Friday the 25th of August. The excitement for gold, had become very general but the attendance was quite good. The largest congregations amounted to about 500. Our aim has been to keep the people so busily employed on such occasions that there should be no time for idle gossip or worldly conversation, and the oneness of aim on the part of all the preachers was well calculated to secure this end. The greatest manifestation of mercy was experienced on Monday night, and so liberally did our members share in its fullest measure that whether they went in the body or out of the body many of them I suspect could not tell.
The number of persons brought to the knowledge of the truth at this meeting was estimated at 19, but I am satisfied this is below the real number. (The interest of the church now began to assume a highly exciting, and at the same time a deeply embarrassing aspect. So large a proportion of the male population seemed ready to move to the gold mines of California, that it required no small share of wisdom to decide how they could best be supplied with the word of life) 8
Early in September my family was somewhat unwell, the following entry in my journal very briefly alludes to a day which I should place among the shades of itinerant
8 The editor cannot determine if Mr. Roberts intended this parenthetical portion to be a summary of a section of his letter, or if it is a portion he eliminated from the letter he m
