The Church Building Quarterly, No. 2, is out, and gives to its readers a hundred pages of excellent reading relating to the interests of the Congregational Union. Plans, specifications and cuts of 26 varieties of church edifices are given with suggestions as to cost, materials, conveniences, title to property and other information of value. Cuts and specifications for three varieties of parsonages are also given. The Quarterly is attractive and we congratulate the brethren who manage the affairs of the Society on their enterprise and success.
A VALUABLE BOOK ON INDIAN MISSIONS.
Indian Missions is a volume of 270 pages, published by the Am. S. S. Union, from the pen of Rev. Myron Eells, missionary of the A. M. A. among the Indians in Washington Territory. Mr. Eells is the son of a missionary, who gave himself to the work on the Pacific Coast in 1838. He grew up in that country, and is perhaps as well qualified as any man living to write the history and results of the work of different benevolent societies among the Indian tribes of that section. In the book before us he gives in order the history of the early missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church and those of the American Board, making mention of the development of the work in ten localities among as many different tribes. The progress of civilizing agencies is recorded with a fidelity and minuteness that adds much to the value of the volume. It appears that most of the missionaries believed that the Bible and the plow should go hand in hand, and that through their influence the Indians were stimulated to cultivate lands, build houses, abandon polygamy, become temperate, connect themselves with churches, and place their children in schools. The author expresses the fear that his statistics relating to such matters may be considered too large, but affirms that they have been taken from official reports. He comforts himself, also, in the words of another, to the effect that “if one-fourth of all that is reported has been accomplished, a great work has been done.”
Part II. of Mr. Eells’ book treats of the reflex influence of the mission upon the whites. His claims are no less interesting than surprising. He says: “Indian missions brought the first white woman overland to Oregon, opened the first emigrant wagon road to the Columbia River, furnished Oregon with the first United States officer, gave the first governor to the Territory, established the first permanent American settlement here, so that without this aid the Provisional Government would, without doubt, never have been organized, brought the first American cattle to the Willamette Valley, and saved the country, or, at least, an important portion of it, to the United States.”
Indeed, when he tells the story of Dr. Whitman’s winter journey to Washington, pursuant to the vote of the missionaries, “to make a desperate effort to save the country to the United States,” he is not only graphic but eloquent. His description of the hardships of the winter’s campaign and of the grand success of the return journey with scores of emigrants, who illustrated beyond question that women and wagons could cross the mountains, and that missionaries at least had the enterprise needful to provide the agency for establishing a provisional government at the focal point in the history of our western territories, is full of interest.
It is impossible, however, in our limited space, even to allude to all the topics touched upon. We must ask our readers to purchase the volume. It is well suited for Sabbath-school libraries, and will be welcomed by good men everywhere who love mission work. As a testimony in behalf of the far-reaching influences of missionary endeavors, it is of rare excellence. We hope its circulation will be swift and extensive.