Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/380

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330 CHARLES HENRY CAREY

Whitman, 15 in May last, left Missouri with a body of emi- grants embracing nearly a thousand persons, and from the signs of the times, many others will soon follow for this new home in the western wilderness. How unspeak- ably important it is that these settlers and their families should meet the Christian missionary on their arrival and thus be brought under the salutary restraints of the holy ministry, and the wholesome influences of religious institutions! These are a few of the many strong reasons for patient and energetic perseverance in this department of our missionary work.

The Board embraces this method to record their grateful acknowledgment of the kind attentions our mis- sionaries and their families so often received from the gentlemen of the Hudson Bay Company, stationed at Vancouver, and other points.

Twenty-sixth Anniversary, Allen Street Church, New York, June 19, 1845.

OREGON MISSION. Various circumstances have combined to render it advisable that important changes should be made in this mission during the past year ; and especially that the number of laborers employed should be considerably reduced. This we learn from our latest despatches have been effected by the new Superintendent ; and we believe with good judgment, though with great dispatch. Brother Gary arrived in the early (in Ore- gon) part of June last, and immediately entered upon a careful and minute investigation of the affairs of the mission. The missionaries were consulted and counseled with by the Superintendent and the result of all his in- quiries and examinations was a full conviction that there were more persons connected with the mission than could be profitably employed ; and that more property was held by it than was for its advantage either temporally or

15 Dr. Marcus Whitman.