CORRESPONDENCE 391
left undone. We know some Baptist members have emi- grated to that country 73 and others are going, but it is reason- able to suppose they are scattered. Should Br. Johnson accept of the appointment, which I trust he will, I would suppose we should select two of the most favorable positions to reach the greatest amount of inhabitants, on or near the navigable waters and as near each other as circumstances will admit, so as to enjoy each others' counsels and, as circumstances permit, labor in public, and in these places make it our great business to establish churches in the apostolic order.
I presume we shall find, in exploring the field, more points of importance that we shall be able to visit monthly on the Sabbaths. I think it probable we may find it our duty to establish something like circuits which we may reach period- ically, while others more remote may demand occasional visits. I trust we shall feel that our great business will be preaching the Word both publicly and from house to house. Yet in a country where education is unprovided for by law, 74 and where every false religionist is propagating his dogmas through the medium of schools, it seems almost indispensible to the greatest and most permanent usefulness of the gospel minister that he become the guardian of youth and patron of moral and re- ligious education. The Pope of Rome has already appointed a Bishop of Oregon and has sent out two ecclesiastics, and with these fathers are to be sent seven female missionaries and a number of priests. 75 I therefore think that, at an early
73 A number of Baptists, prominent among whom was David T. Lenox, had come to Oregon with the immigration of 1843. Lenox and a number of others settled on Tualatin plains and there organized in May, 1844, a Baptist church. This was the only Baptist church in Oregon until 1846. The Rev. Vincent Snelling, a Baptist minister, came with the immigration of 1844, and was, as far as is known, the first Baptist clergyman in Oregon. C. H. Mattoon, Baptist Annals of Oregon I:i, 2, 39, 43. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:421, 466.
74 The author was right as to the absence of public state instruction. This did not come until much later. The first school in Oregon supported by a public tax was opened in Milton, near St. Helens, Columbia County, September 15, 1851. G. H. Himes; Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:35; I:2oi, 325.
75 The first Catholic priests came to Oregon m 1838. One of these, Blanchet, was created Archbishop of Oregon in 1843. In 1844 a company of five priests, a number of lay brothers, and six sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, came from Europe. The "two ecclesiastics" referred to by the author were possibly Fathers Blanchet and Demers, who had come in 1838. Several others, notably Rev. P. J. De Smet, came to the country between 1838 and the arrival of the party of 1844. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:315, 327-
