“When I arrived I had not sufficient corn to feed my men three days.  There was also at that time a great scarcity of fish.  But the God of Elijah did not forsake us.  We soon were in the midst of plenty.  On the 11th of the present instant my fisherman returned, having been absent not quite four weeks, and with but four nets, yet I had nearly 6000 tulibees (this is a small species of whitefish) on my scaffold.  My house, in the meantime, was going forward, though rather tardily, with but one man.  In two days more I hope to quit my bark lodge for my log and mud-walled cottage, though it has neither chair nor three-legged stool, table nor bedstead.  But all this does not frighten me.  No, it is good for a man sometimes to stand in need, that he may the better know how to feel for his fellow-man.

“You mention the receipt of a letter from Mr. Greene, relative to the field at Fond du Lac.  I am happy to hear so full an expression of your views in relation to that post.  As the Board were unable to supply a teacher, Mr. Hall, on visiting them in September, with myself and Mr. Ely—­we were all of the same opinion, that it must be occupied—­and finally, with the advice of Mr. Aitkin, concluded that it was best for Mr. Ely to pass the winter there.  Mr. Cote was also very desirous of a school being opened.  Sandy Lake, of course, is without a teacher this winter.  I was not a little disappointed, after the repeated assurances and encouragements of the Board to expect aid, and after the provision I had made for a fellow-laborer, to be directed to return and pass another winter as I did the past.  Suffice it to say, I have learned more of Indian habits, customs, prejudices, &c., than I knew two years, or even one year before.

“To pass my time in the family of the trader, I could not avoid giving the impression that I was more interested in the trade than in their temporal and spiritual welfare.  To live alone I could not, and live above their suspicion from the habits of single men who are engaged in the trade.  To live in the family with my hired man, would be quite as bad.  I, therefore, concluded that the time had now come when duty was too imperious not to receive a hearing.  A sense of duty, duty to God, the cause of Christianity, myself and this people, therefore, led me to change my condition.

“I am giving you no news (I presume), only the reasons which satisfy myself, and that for an enlightened moral being is enough, at least it is all I need or wish to meet friend or foe.

“The Indians now are all at their wintering grounds, and on good terms with the Sioux, as I, this evening, learn from Mr. D., who has just returned from an excursion among them.  They have appeared quite as friendly, and by far more civil, this fall than last.”

Dec. 8th.  Mr. Leonard Woods, and Dr. A.W.  Ives, of New York, press me to write for the pages of the Theological Review, a periodical of great spirit and judgment in its department.