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XVII.

LEE'S PLACE IN HISTORY.

"When God moulds a prophet He places him for a while in the wilderness so that he may be framed after vastness of His own heart."

"He shall come back on his own track, and by his scarce

cold camp

There shall He meet the roaring street, the derrick and the

stamp:

For He must blaze a nations way, with hatchet and with

brand,

Till on his last won wilderness an empire's bulwarks stand." -RUDYARD KIPLING.

ROVIDENTIALLY the history of the mis

PROV

sionary work in Oregon from the time of its inception in the mind of the American Church in 1833 to the time of his departure from Oregon in 1843, accreted about the name of Jason Lee. By the very same providence whatever there was of civil history in the same field and time gathered about the missionary work of which he was the center. The current incidents connected with his personal association with that work in fields broader and more important than those occupied by any other man have been discussed in the foregoing pages. It is only the justice of history, however, before we dismiss his name from the story of the

work that others took up as he laid it down, that we give a clear and connected view of his dominant place in the history of the Northwest during that era that did most to determine its final civil relations, and, as well, the ultimate character of its intellectual and social and religious life. Our readers cannot have failed to discern the general trend of his strongly marked characteristics as they have traced him in his journey in 1834 as the true "Path finder" for civilization through the 2,000 miles of mountain wilderness that lay between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean. They have seen these same characteristics magnified as he toiled on, out of sight of the world, among the most wretched and degraded human beings that Christianity ever ventured the experiment of a gracious renewal upon, for four solitary years, until his faithful work had brought in to that people some dawning hope of a better life. Still more strikingly were these qualities shown in his retracement of the weary pilgrimage of 1834 over the Rocky Mountains in 1838, to find and bring more laborers for the rescue and salvation of the wretched tribes for whose sake he had come at the first. Yet more was his character and force honored by the intelligence with which he organized, and the fidelity and faithfulness with which he conducted the great

reinforcement through that trying sea voyage half way round the world in the ship Lausanne, in 18391840. Lastly they have seen these characteristics lifted to the acme of sublime action in the last great journey that he undertook for his mission, and the Oregon he had adopted as his own through the bandits of Mexico and by the sinuous and treacherous paths along which he labored his way to New York in 1844. Though these characteristics have been observed by our readers they should have a clearer historic setting.

Mr. Lee's nature was cast in an opulent mould. Physically he was an imposing personality. Six feet and four inches in height, well and symmetrically developed, his appearance gave the world assurance of a man. His complexion was almost blond, his hair light, and his eyes grayish-blue; a marked Anglo-Saxon combination, and he was fuil of the strong and virile elements of that race. Of course this had much to do with what he accomplished, and rendered it possible for him to hold the supreme place he did hold in fashioning the history of the early Oregon, and hence the Oregon of all history. There is yet another fact that has escaped its proper statement, if, indeed, it has not had misstatements in many places, that greatly influenced the results of his relation to the country

and society where he wrought so faithfully and effectually. It was this: Though born in Canada, he was a thorough American. We mean by this that he was not only an American citizen, and as such entitled to all the franchises of that citizenship, but American in the broadest and most patriotic sense. His birthplace was but a few miles across the line from Vermont. His parents were thorough New Englanders, who had themselves heired the longest and purest lineage of Puritan blood. He had but to step across the line into the United States to enter into the citizenship that was his by birthright. Beyond this right was the fact that the most fashioning years of his early manhood were spent in school at Wilbraham, in Massachusetts, under the tutelage of one of the most patriotic of Americans, Dr. Wilbur Fisk, and in the close companionship of Osmon C. Baker and many others like him, all Americans of the Americans. No man ever had better title to whatever credit the trusts of high friendships or the rights and franchises of citizenships could give him, than Jason Lee. All that made and moulded him, blood, education, life-work, were American, and made him the fit representative of the most intense American ecclesiasticism on the continent in the great work of his life in Oregon. This plain and

emphatic statement of facts in regard to his civil position, and his loyalty and love for American institutions is made, in a manner, necessary because some recent writers, conversant only with the fact that his birthplace was in Canada, seem to have tried to discount his fame and detract from the credit due to his work because, as they have often repeated, "he was a Canadian." Our readers will see that, in the sense in which they make this statement, there is no foundation for it in fact. In any sense in which he was a Canadian there is absolutely nothing that derogates from his thorough Americanism, and hence nothing that can impeach the claim here made of his premiership in the plans and work that made Oregon the solid, intense, patriotic American commonwealth she has been ever since she left the fashioning hands of Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee was a man of firm faith, great courage, and sustained and persevering action.

His whole life is a commentary on this statement. These basal moral elements of greatness abounded in his nature. His faith was radical. It did not rest on a visionary hope that happy incidents or accidents would intervene in his favor at fortunate times, but in a just appreciation of personal confidence in the government of God.

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