doing only a moiety of justice would be done to a worthy and good man, and to one who has labored and suffered more for this Pacific coast than any other living man. Very respectfully, your obedient servants,

D. W. BALLARD,

W. R. BISHOP.
LUTHER WHITE,

Committee of Presbytery.

Governor and ex-officio Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Idaho Territory.

LEWISTON, February 22, 1865.

SIR: I was United States Indian agent in charge of the Nez Perces Nation, Idaho Territory, when the Rev. H. H. Spalding, who had been appointed superintendent of instruction for Nez Perces Indians by Superintendent Hale, arrived at the Lapwai agency in the fall of 1862. At the time of his arrival a great part of the tribe was collected at the agency, and I must say they seemed highly delighted at seeing Mr. Spalding again. They seemed much pleased at the idea of having a school started among them, and of having a minister who could preach to them in their own language.

Every Sabbath the Indians in great numbers attended Mr. Spalding's preaching, and I was greatly astonished at the orderly and dignified deportment of the congregation. Although Mr. Spalding had been absent from the tribe many years, yet they retained all the forms of worship that he had taught them. Many of them have prayers night and morning in their lodges. The Nez Perces have always maintained friendly relations with the Americans. This is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed to the influence and teachings of Mr. Spalding. In my opinion, Mr. Spalding, by his own personal labors, has accomplished more good in this tribe than all the money expended by Government has been able to effect. Not having any suitable school-house, I permitted Mr. Spalding to open his school in my office shortly after his arrival, and from that time till he was compelled to discontinue the school from severe sickness, the office was crowded not only with children, but with old men and women, some compelled to use glasses to assist their sight. Some of the old men would remain till bedtime engaged in transcribing into their language portions of Scripture translated by Mr. Spalding. The desire I have to correct any false impression that may have gone abroad with regard to the reception of Mr. Spalding by the tribe on his return to the Lapwai in the fall of 1862, is the only apology I will offer for troubling you with this communication.

I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[From The Pacific, San Francisco, California, February 6, 1×64.]

On Sunday last I had the pleasure of attending church at this place. The services were conducted in the Nez Perces language by the Rev. H. H. Spalding, who came to this people with his heroic wife in 1836.

The governor of the Territory was present, and all the Federal officers and nearly all the county officers, with most of the citizens of Lewiston. The large court-room was Growded to its utmost capacity. The scene was deeply solemn and interesting; the breathless silence, the earnest, devout attention of that great Indian congregation (even the small child) to the words of their much-loved pastor; the spirit, the sweet melody of their singing, the readiness with which they turned to hymns and chapters, and read with Mr. Spalding the Sabbath lessons from their Testaments, which Mr. Spalding had translated and printed twenty years before; the earnest, pathetic voice of the native Christians whom Mr. Spalding called upon to pray-all, all, deeply and solemnly impressed that large congregation of white spectators even to tears. It would be better to-day, a thousand times over, if Government would do away with its policy that is so inefficiently carried out, and only lend its aid to a few such men as Mr. Spalding, whose whole heart is in the business, who has but one desire, and that to civilize and christianize these Indians. To-day shows what can be done when the heart is right.

I concur.

I heartily concur.

I heartily concur.

ALEX. SMITH,

Judge First Judicial District, Territory of Idaho.

GEORGE ABERNATHY.

JOEL PALMER.

A. HINMAN.

From Hon. D. S. Thompson, of Oregon Senate.

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 20, 1871. DEAR SIR: I was employed during the past summer in surveying into twenty-acre lots a part of the Nez Perces reservation, Idaho Territory. I have been in the western portion of the United States, among the Indians, the greatest portion of my life, and I believe the Nez Perces Indians are by far the most intelligent and susceptible of civilization of any Indians of which I am acquainted. The work done by yourself for these Indians, years ago, you must feel yourself well paid for when you see what they now are, and what they were when you first went among them. Last year they raised not less than 50,000 bushels of wheat, 10,000 bushels of corn, 10,000 bushels of oats, besides large quantities of potatoes and other vegetables. I am rejoiced to hear that you are going back to that people; you are better acquainted with them than any other man, and I know they regard you their best friend.

Yours, &c.,

Rev. H. H. SPALDING.

[From the Chicago Advance, December 1, 1870.]

AN EVENING WITH AN OLD MISSIONARY.

D. S. THOMPSON.

One day last week a man of humble appearance, about seventy years of age, called at our office, and was introduced by a stranger as the Rev. H. H. Spalding, of Oregon. We had heard something of his labors as a missionary among the Indians in that region, and were glad to take the veteran by the hand. He was on the way to his old home at the East, after an absence of thirty-four years, and intended to stay over but a single train in Chicago. The few words we could then have together led us to press him to share our hospitalities for the night, which he accepted.

"Dr. Whitman's wife and mine," said the missionary, as we drew up our chairs about the study-table and opened our "Colton" to the right map, "were the first white women that ever crossed the Rocky Mountains. That saved Oregon to the Union. It was God's plan to give the wealth of the Pacific slope to the United States through the agency of missionaries." We asked for an explanation. "The Northwestern territory was then occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company. Who should finally possess itEngland or the United States-depended upon who could first settle it with an immigration. The Hudson's Bay Company desired to secure it for their half-breeds and the Jesuits. They were slowly creeping down from Selkirk settlement, here on the north,” pointing it out on the map, "and silently taking possession, with forts and trading posts. Neither wagons nor women, they industriously said, can ever pass the terrible rock-barriers that wall out Oregon from the United States. Trappers, traders, travelers, everybody echoed the words: No white woman can cross the mountains and live.' Seven different companies of male emigrants from the East had been shrewdly harried out of the country by their machinations. But they couldn't do it with us," said he, rising excitedly. When the missionaries, with their wives and a wagon, ap peared on the 'divide,' one of them said: 'Here is somebody that you can't get rid of so easy. These folks have come to stay."

66

"But how came you to go?" we asked. And then for four hours of the rarest interest we listened to the wonderful story. It would take a volume to unfold it. We must press it into the briefest possible space. The Macedonian Nez Perces.-About their council fire, in solemn conclave-it was in the year 1832-the Flatheads and Nez Perces had determined to send four of their number to "the Rising Sun" for "that Book from Heaven." They had got word of the Bible and a Saviour in some way from the Iroquois. These four dusky wise men, one of them a chief, who had thus dimly "seen His star in the east," made their way to St. Louis. And it is significant of the perils of this thousand miles' journey that only one of then survived to return. They fell into the hands of General Clark, who, with Lewis, had traveled extensively in the regions of the Columbia River. He was a Romanist, and took them to his church, and, to entertain them, to the theater. How utterly he failed to meet their wants is revealed in the sad words with which they departed: "I came to you "—and the survivor repeated the words years afterward to Mr. Spalding-" with one eye partly opened; I go back with both eyes closed and both arms broken. My people sent me to obtain that Book from Heaven. You took me where your women dance as we do not allow ours to dance; and the Book was not there. You took me where I saw men worship God with candles; and the Book was not there. I am now to return without it, and my people will die in darkness." And so they took their leave. But this sad lament was overheard. A young man wrote it to his friends in Pittsburg. They showed the account to Catlin, of Indian portrait fame, who had just come from the Rocky Mountains. He said: "It cannot be ; those Indians were in our company, and I heard nothing of this. Wait till I write to Clark before

you publish it." He wrote. The response was: "It is true. That was the sole object of their visit-to get the Bible." Then Catlin said. "Give it to the world." The Methodists at once commissioned Rev. Mr. Lee to go and find this tribe, who had so strangely broken out of their darkness toward the light. Dr. Marcus Whitman, of the American Board, who was too late for the overland caravan for that summer, followed the next year. Lee found the Nez Perces; but so fearful were the ridges and the ravines of the path to them, and so wild the country where they roamed, that the gift of ten horses, with which they pleaded their cause, could not keep him. He pushed on to the tribes living near the coast, and sent for his wife and associates by the way of Cape Horn. Woman's heroism.-It was with great joy the Nez Perces welcomed Whitman the next year. Having explored the situation, and taking with him two boys, which the Indians had placed in his hands as hostages, in some sort, for his return, he went back for his intended wife, and to secure others for the work. But who would go? Men could be found; but where was the woman willing to brave the vague horrors of that "howling wilderness?" His betrothed consented. But an associate, and he a married man, must be obtained. More than a score of most devoted ones were applied to in vain. Friends said, "It is madness to make the attempt." And we do not wonder; for that country, and the way between, in the popular impression, was a dark unknown, full of terrors.

The dead are there where rolls the Oregon,

wrote Bryant. The dead were there, and the bones of not a few luckless emigrants strewed the path to the mountains.

A year was spent in the search for associates, and then light came from an unexpected quarter. In the early spring of 1836 a sleigh, extemporized from a wagon, was erunching through the deep shows of Western New York. It contained Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, who were on their way, under commission of the American Board, to the Osage Indians. The wife had started from a bed of lingering illness, and was then able to walk less than a quarter of a mile.

Dr. Whitman, having heard of the rare courage of this woman, by permission of the board, started in pursuit.

We want you for Oregon," was the hail with which he overtook them.

"How long will the journey take?"

The suminers of two years."

"What convoy shall we have?"

"The American Fur Company to the 'divide.'”

"What shall we have to live on?"

"Buffalo meat, till we can raise our own grain."

"How shall we journey?"

"On horseback."

"How cross the rivers?"

"Swim them."

After this brief dialogue-and we give it precisely in his own words-Mr. Spalding turned to his wife and said:

My dear, my mind is made up. It is not your duty to go; but we will leave it to you after we have prayed.”

By this time they had reached a tavern in the town of Howard, New York. Taking a private room. they each prayed in turn, and then left Mrs. Spalding to herself. In about ten minutes she appeared with a beaming face, and said, “I have made up my mind to go."

But your health, my dear."

"I like the command just as it stands. 'Go ye into all the world,' and no exceptions for poor health.”

But the perils, in your weak condition-you don't begin to think how great they

"The dangers of the way and the weakness of my body are His; duty is mine." "But the Indians will take you prisoner. They are frantic for such captives. You will never see your friends again"—and the strong man broke down and began to cry. Was it the wife that answered, or was it a voice from the old time? "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem, or in the Rocky Mountains, for the name of the Lord Jesus."

Then," said the veteran, with a charming simplicity, "I had to come to it. I didn't know anything."

"Well, you were crazy," we interposed, " to think of such a journey and she so weak."

"We were, but God meant to have us go. He wanted to have an emigration go across the mountains, and this was the way he took to start it."

Mr. and Mrs. Spalding continued their journey, and Whitman, sending forward to his bride to be ready, went back for his Indian boys-they were then about sixteen

years old-and pressed on after them. There was a hasty wedding by the way, and then the bridal tour began.

But the strife of parting was not yet over. At Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St Louis-all along the way-hands were stretched out to hold them back. Catlin, at Pittsburg, assured them they could not take women through. The hostile Indians that hover about the convoy would fight against any odds to capture them. One woman had tried it, but the company was massacred, and she was dragged away and never heard of again. Mrs. Spalding was especially beset with these tales of horror. But," said the husband, with an honest pride, "it didn't move her a hair.”

A Sunday on shore.-An incident, by the way, should be noted here. The party took boat at Pittsburg. Saturday night found them between Cairo and St. Louis. Mrs. Spalding, who seems to have had a good share both of courage and the conscience of the company, insisted that they should be put on shore to spend Sunday. The captain and the passengers laughed at her scruples. But she said, "Out on the plains we shall be at the mercy of the Fur Company, and must go on; here we can stop."

"But no boat will ever call at such an out-of-the-way place as this to take you off.” "We'll take the chances of that. Put us on shore.”

The New England home missionary marked that day in white which brought such a rare accession to his little meeting in the school-honse. He said it was like an angel's visit. Early Monday morning a great puffing was heard below, and a grand steamer, better than the one they had left, rounded to at their signal and took them on board. Sixty miles above they overtook the other boat hopelessly stranded on a sand-bar.

At St. Louis the missionaries found the American Fur Company fitting out their annual expedition for the mountains. But as the two wives were along, they could not have secured a place in the caravan had not Whitman been in special favor by his services rendered the year before. It seems that, on his previous trip, a few days out from Council Bluffs, the cholera had broken out, and the demoralized men, dropping their packs, began to flee in a perfect rout. But Dr. Whitman, who, added to his great strength, had skill and tact, was equal to the emergency. Throwing off his coat, he sweated the patients over the boiling camp kettles, administered powerful remedies, and so stayed the pestilence and restored order. The men were now as grateful as they had been before cool and contemptuous; and when an arrow's head had been extracted from behind the festering spine of a comrade, and his life saved, their admiration knew no bounds.

Having secured the company's pledge, they pressed on by boat to Liberty Landing. Here Spalding purchased mules, (wild he found them,) fifteen or twenty horses, as many cows, and two wagons, not forgetting a quart of seed wheat. With this retinue he started for Council Bluffs, while Whitman waited, with the women and the goods, for the company's boat. After some days that boat passed, purposely leaving them behind. Through this bad faith, he was obliged to send forward to Spalding for horses, and to overtake him as he could by land. This part of the trip was peculiarly trying. Spalding especially, who, for his wife's sake, was not yet altogether happy in going, seemed to be the sport of a very ill fortune. But in the review even he could see a comic side to his mishaps. A mule kicked him. He was terribly shaken by th agne. In crossing a ferry an unruly cow, which he had laid hold of, jumped overboard, taking him along for ballast. A tornado scattered his cattle, swept away his tent, tore his blankets from him while the ague turn was on, and left him to be drenched by the rain, with the usual consequences to one who takes calomel for his medicine.

It did not help the case any to learn, when they were within twenty-five miles of Council Bluffs, that the Fur Company's convoy had started, and were already five and a half days out on the plains.

"Twas a poor chance," said the narrator, "for us greenhorns. They were old trappers with fresh horses, while our teams were already jaded. And I said-I was terribly sick, you know- we can't overtake them; we shall have to go back.' But my wife constantly affirmed, 'I have started for the Rocky Mountains, and I expect to go there!"

And now commenced a series of marked interpositions. It was pure faith and no sight at all to push on after that cavalcade. The trappers evidently designed to keep ahead, and so induce the missionaries to turn back. But to secure the protection of the convoy was indispensable, and God took care of His own.

"It was a desperate race," said the missionary, kindling at the remembrance, “but we won it. They had to halt and fill up ravines and make roads, preparing the way of the Lord, you see. This detained them four days. Just where He stopped them the year before with the cholera, He stayed them again; not, as at the Red Sea, by taking off the wheels, but by setting the axles on fire. In their haste to get away from us they had forgotten to take sufficient wheel-grease. To burn wood for ashes, going ten miles out of their way to find it, and to kill two oxen for the fat necessary for this compound, took four days more. And then, at Loup Fork, still four other days were lost in finding the ford and drying their goods, wet in crossing. Meanwhile we were pressing on behind, and the Lord helped us. The day before we reached Loup

Fork we rode from daylight-it was late in May-till two o'clock at night. One horse broke down and was turned loose, and my wife fainted by the way. A signal gun at the ford brought answer from the other side, and we camped. The convoy started early in the morning, but left a man to show us across, and late that night we missionaries filed into their camp, and took the place reserved for us, two messes west of the captain's tent, and so we won the race by two lengths!"

Once among them, nothing could exceed the kindness of the men. "The choicest buffalo morsels were always kept for our ladies. But sick or well, we had to go on. We were two hundred souls and six hundred animals. Everything was in the strictest military order, for hostile Indians continually hovered on our flanks. At night we camped, with the animals solid in the center. The tents and wagons were disposed around them; and outside of all sentinels marched their steady round. Each day two hunters and two packers went out for buffalo. Each night, save when we had lost the way, they overtook us at the appointed camp with four mule-loads of meat. was our only subsistence."

This

On the 6th of June we were at Fort Laramie. Wife was growing weaker and weaker. "You must stay here," said the captain; "Mrs. Spalding will die for want of bread." "No," said she, "I started to go over the mountains in the name of my Savior, and I must go on.”

Independence Day at the "Divide."--July 4th, they entered the South Pass. Mrs. Spalding fainted that morning, and thought she was about to die. As they laid her upon the ground, she said: Don't put me on that horse again. Leave me and save yourselves. Tell mother I am glad I came.'

But the caravan stopped on the Divide," and sent back for her, and she was borne on. She soon revived, and three hours afterward they saw the waters trickling toward the Pacific. And there-it was Independence Day, six years before Frémont, following in the footsteps of these women, gained the name of the "Path-finder,”—they, alighting from their horses and kneeling on the other half of the continent, with the Bible in one hand and the American flag in the other, took possession of it as the home of American mothers, and of the Church of Christ.

Just beyond was the great mountain rendezvous, the end of the convoy's route, a kind of neutral ground, where multitudes of Indians were gathered for trade. There were rough mountaineers there who had not seen a white woman since they had left the homes of their childhood. Some of them came to meet the missionaries, and wept as they took their wives by the hand. "From that day," said one of them, "I was a better man." But best of all, here met them a greeting party of the Nez Perces. They were the happiest men you ever saw. Their women took possession of Mrs. Spalding, and the gladness they showed, not less than the bisenit-root and the trout with which they fed her, revived her spirit. From that hour she began to mend; and from that hour her future and theirs were one.

Ten days of rest here, and the journey was resumed. The remainder of the way, if shorter, was no less perilous, and they had asked in dismay, "What shall we do for a convoy?" But God took care of them. He sent an English trading company to the rendezvous that year-an unusual thing-and with them they completed the trip.

It was the 29th of November when they reached the Columbia River. They had left civilization the 21st of May, a long journey, but not the trip of two summers to which they had made up their minds.

And now they were at home amid a nation that had no homes; they had found a resting place among restless wanderers. But faith had become sight; the first battle had been fonght and won. White women had come safely over the mountains; cattle and horses had been kept secure from Indian raiders; a wagon had been brought through," the first wheel that had ever pressed the sage." Whitman had demonstrated to himself that an emigration could cross from Missouri to Oregon; and when, six years afterward, he led a company of a thousand along the same track, he demonstrated it to the world and saved Oregon, and with it California, to the United States.

The true Indian policy.—The old missionary's story is not half told, but we must cut it short. Whitman took the Caynses at Waiilatpu (Wy-ee-lat-poo,) near Walla Walla; Spalding camped 120 miles farther up the Snake River, among the Nez Perces. He found a people withont a hoe, or plow, or hoof of cattle; savages, who feasted when the hunt was good, but starved through the long winters. Eleven years afterward they were settled in homes; their crops of grain had reached from 20,000 to 30,000 bushels a year. The cows which the missionaries brought had multiplied for the Indians into numerous herds; gardens and orchards were planted; the sheep which the English residents denied them, but which the Sandwich Islanders gave, had grown to flocks. In the school which Mrs. Spalding taught, carrying a young child in her arins, were 500 pupils. A church of a hundred members had been gathered. The tongue of the people, hitherto without a character, had been reduced to writing. A patriarchal government, with a code of laws, had been established; the Sabbath was