ppy 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.

_31st_. The people of this territory have evinced, in various ways,
great uneasiness in not being admitted, by a preparatory act of
Congress, to the right of forming a state constitution, and admission
into the Union, agreeably to the Ordinance of 1787. The population has,
for some time, been more than sufficient to authorize one
representative. In some respects, the term of territorial probation and