113

CORRESPONDENCE

said to be as large as Portland. Should I visit Chasty Valley, or will our California brother penetrate the mountains from the south and explore this mining district? With sentiments of Christian esteem,

EZRA FISHER. Received April 24.

Oregon

City,

O. Territory,

May

3d, 1855.

Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec.

Am.

Bapt.

Home

Mission Soc.

Dear Brother: Yours of March 3d has just come to hand and I now sit down to answer it. It is with mingled emotions that I learn that your Board have reappointed me to the work of exI shall endeavor in the ploring agent and general itinerant. fear of

God

to

enter

upon those

duties to the best of

my

but in view of the gradual decline of my physical, not to say mental powers, I am led to hope that your Board will be looking out for a man of ripe Christian experience and

abilities,

strong physical constitution to enter upon the responsibilities of this work after the present year. I feel that I have a right

more

limited field which will call for less exposure and the inconveniences of a frontier life. Yet I often feel that I would prefer the ways of Providence to those of my own choosings. I wish it to be distinctly understood by the Board that my personal inclinations have for a long time been to locate so that I could reach the extent of my field of labor by a day's ride. Should you find a suitable man to enter upon this work at an earlier period than

to ask for a

in winter rains

the expiration of the present year, I will rejoice to facilitate It seems to me that the labor of such a his introduction.

man to

Oregon should not be dispensed with. As it relates the work of collecting for the Home Mission Society, you

know

in

am

willing to do all that I can in the furtherIt is likewise true that your Society ance of that object. ought to have found more pecuniary aid flowing into your that I