Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/145

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McLaughlin and Mr. Douglas, who also tendered one of the company's boats to convey the missionary band to Willamette. Their journey to this place was a real triumph, such was the joy and excitement produced among the inhabitants by the accession of these new laborers to the vineyard. The sisters [of] Notre Dame soon occupied the building which had been undertaken for their purposes, and in the month of December it was opened as a boarding academy for girls. Father De Smet, about the same time, directed his course towards the Flatheads, Father Devos having come to supply his place in the south. The labors of the Jesuits among the tribes of the north have been crowned with the most abundant success. In 1842, a new mission, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was founded about eight days' journey south of St. Mary's.[41] In addition to the increased resources {45} which the mission received in 1844, we must mention also the arrival of two other Jesuit Fathers and one lay brother, who went to Oregon, by the way of the Rocky Mountains.[42]

Such was the state of the country, and such the progress of religion among the natives and colonists, when Mr.