CORRESPONDENCE 335
are holding weekly meetings, with encouraging prospects. One of my scholars succeeded last week in obtaining about fifteen names of his fellow students to the pledge. Our sisters sustain a monthly prayer meeting.
The passage of the Oregon Land bill is operating tempor- arily against our school by calling some of our supporters with their families to leave town and settle on their land. Yet our school this quarter numbers about fifty and is in- creasing. We think we shall feel the effect of the bill still more through the coming summer, probably not longer. Our school building moves forward slowly. Money is constantly becoming more scarce and we find it hard collecting sub- scriptions, yet our motto is Onward. As soon as the days become a little longer and the traveling improved I intend, God granting, to take the subscription paper mornings and evenings and try what can be done by way of collecting and enlarging the subscriptions.
Perhaps we shall have to secure the labors of some person for two months in this work during the season. We have contracted for enclosing the house and that work is on the way and the house will be ready for painting as soon as the rainy season passes. We shall not be ready to occupy the house before June, perhaps Aug. or Sept. We trust we shall not fail of receiving a reinforcement in Br. Chandler, and we hope others. It is ruinous to abandon this work or even to suspend operations at this time. We could better do it after the house is completed. Should we suspend at this time, the public would say this people attempted to build and were not able, we should lose public confidence, consequently pecuniary aid, and our unfinished work would mock us. At present we are assured that we are securing public approba- tion. Our community is weekly increasing with an energetic, enterprising people, and the demand for ministerial labor this year will be triple that of last summer. I am in a strait betwixt the two, but I see no other way than to hold to the
