METHODIST REPORTS WILLAMETTE MISSION 323
frustrated, and our hopes delayed, to conclude in the spirit of impatience, that all therefore is lost? There is indeed call for strict inquiry unto the spirit of mind in which these plans were adopted, and into the grounds upon which these hopes were entertained, but no room for discouragement in the prosecution of the work itself. Cause there may be and doubtless is for a deeper humil- ity, and for greater dependence on divine agency, but none for despair as to ultimate success.
The peculiar circumstances under which this mission was established, especially the strongly marked indica- tions of Providence which lead to the measure, are fa- miliar to all. Such, indeed, was the sensation produced in the Church by the visit of the Flat Head Indians to this country, in search of the white man's God, that the involuntary expression burst forth in every direction, "Surely this is the finger of God !" Many of the choicest spirits, in the connection, among whom we rank the sainted Fisk, 12 threw themselves into the interests of the mission with a zeal and energy which seemed to bid de- fiance to every obstacle. Nor have the divine interpo- sitions in its favor been less strongly marked in its prose- cution, than in the circumstances which gave rise to it.
It is now about three years since this mission was favored with a most extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit, which resulted in the conversion of hundreds of the Indians in this distant field. And we learn from Brother Kone, who with his lady has recently returned to the States, that about five hundred of these are now in the communion of the Methodist E. Church in Oregon. Are all these signal signs of a divine sanction to be lost sight of amid the clouds of a cherished unbelief? When the cheering intelligence of that glorious revival was wafted by the kindly breezes of heaven to the ear of the Church in this country, all doubts in every mind appeared
12 Dr. Wilbur Fisk, president of Wesleyan University, at Wilbraham, Massachusetts.
