lacked the revolt of genius against stupidity, of ambition against the gross limitations of sensualism. No stranger ethnic anomaly ever dropped into the flow of human history. We note the

fact, as, in one aspect, explaining the strange outcome of one of the most romantically conceived and vigorously and self-denyingly prosecuted missionary movements of modern times; a movement that seemed to leave the people for whom it was designed in ruins, but left a splendid residuum of civilization and Christian life for the sturdier race that so speedily came after them.

W

XIX.

MISSION TRAGEDIES.

E have spoken in the former chapter of the

appointment of Rev. William Roberts as Superintendent of the Oregon Mission to succeed Mr. Gary, and of his assumption of that office on the departure of the latter in July, 1847.

The new Superintendent was a man of many endowments and special qualifications for the work to which he had been assigned by the church. He was born in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1812, and his early life was spent in close touch with those opportunities for improvement that would naturally come with the associations of metropolitan life. He was admitted on trial in the Philadelphia Conference in 1834, and stationed in St. George's Church in Philadelphia, associated with Henry White, R. Gerry and Thomas McCarrol in a city circuit. His appointments from that time onward to 1846 were mostly in Philadelphia, Newark and Jersey City, in New Jersey. In these places he maintained a very high standard of pulpit power, and was clearly marked for future eminence in his calling. He was the associate and friend of such

men as McClintock, Floy, Perry and Pittman. In 1846, while the latter was secretary of the Missionary Board, Mr. Roberts was selected to take charge of the Oregon Mission as superintendent. He was thirty-four years of age; a very Chesterfield in appearance and manners, and yet as affable and approachable to the lowly as to the exalted. In the pulpit his elocution was nearly faultless. and his sermons were thoroughly evangelical and charmingly eloquent. He was energetic in execution. Though not a large man, and yet not a small one, physically, when he entered upon his work here his figure and poise drew the instant attention of the passer by, and introduced him to the favorable regards of the people at once. He had need of all his attainments and abilities, however, for he was following Lee and Gary and he must be capable and strong who could go where and as they had set the pace of the journey.

The circumstances under which he entered on the superintendency were of the most favorable character. He had himself been a member of the Missionary Board, and had studied the missionary question from that standpoint. He was the intimate personal friend of Secretary Pittman. He had known Jason Lee, and entertained him in his own home in Patterson, New Jersey, in 1839, and