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BEGINNINGS OF OREGON. 115 missionary work in Oregon the credit that justly was its due; for after the rush of immigration began the missionary peo- ple were, so to speak, inundated hy it, and what they had dour was for ;i time overlooked. Hut going hack, as now we must, to the study of our "origins" and we shall do this more and more we are compelled to recognition of the great work which the missionaries did. I do not say that Oregon would not have been held without them; hut they were a powerful factor in holding it. The story of the toilsome inarch of the wagon trains over the plains will be received by future generations almost as a legend on the borderland of myth, rather than as veritable history. It will be accepted, indeed, but scarcely understood. Even now to the survivors who made the journey the realities of it seem half fabulous. It no longer has the appearance of a rational undertaking. Rapid transit of the present time seems almost to relegate the story to the land of fable. No longer can we understand the motives that urged our pioneers toward the indefinite horizon that seemed to verge on the un- known. Looking back at the movement now, a mystery ap- pears in it. It was the final effort of that profound impulse which, from a time far preceding the dawn of history, has pushed the race to which we belong to discovery and occupa- tion of western lands. from the circumstances of her settlement and its isolation, and through natural interaction of the mate- rials slowly brought together, has a character nlmost pecul- iarly its own. In some respects that character is admirable In others it is open to criticism. Our situation has made for us a little world in which strong traits of character peculiarly our owji have been developed; it has also left us somewhat- - indeed, too much out of touch with the world at larg. We do not readjust ourselves readily to the conditions that sur- round us in the world of opinion and action forces now !>!' ni'_r in upon us steadily from all sides. The life of a community is the aggregate life of the individ- uals who are its units, and the general law that holds for the