exclaim, in the language of the Gospel, "What hath
God wrought?"

CHAPTER XLII.

Revival of St. Mary's--Rejection of Mr. Van Buren as Minister to
England--Botany and Natural History of the North-west--Project of a new
expedition to find the Sources of the Mississippi--Algie
Society--Consolidation of the Agencies of St. Mary's and
Michilimackinack--Good effects of the American Home Missionary
Society--Organization of a new inland exploring expedition committed to
me--Its objects and composition of the corps of observers.

1832, _Jan. 31st_. I was now to spend a winter to aid a preacher in
promoting the diffusion and understanding of the detailed facts, which
all go to establish a great truth--a truth which was first brought to
the world's notice eighteen hundred and thirty-two years before, namely,
that God, who was incarnate in the Messiah, under the name of Jesus
Christ, offered himself a public sacrifice for human sins, amidst the
most striking and imposing circumstances of a Roman execution--a fact
which, in an age of extraordinary moral stolidity and ecclesiastical
delusion, was regarded as the behest of a mere human tribunal.

For this work the circumstances of our position and exclusion from
society was very favorable. The world, with all its political and
commercial care, was, in fact, shut out with the closing of the river.
Three hundred miles of a waste, howling wilderness separated us
south-easterly from the settlements at Detroit. Ninety miles in a
south-westerly direction lay the island and little settlement and
mission of Mackinack.

In addition to the exertions of Mr. Porter, who was our pastor, the
winter had enclosed, at that point, a zealous missionary of the American
Board, destined for a more northerly position, in the person of Mr.
Boutwell, who with the person, Mr. Bingham, in charge of the Indian
mission at the same point, maintained by the Baptist Convention,
constituted a moral force that was not likely to be without its results.
They derived mutual aid from each other in various ways, and directed
their entire efforts upon a limited community, wholly excluded from open
contact with the busy world, and having, by their very isolation,
much leisure.

The result was an awakened attention to the truth, to which I have
adverted, not as a mere historical event, but one personally interesting
and important to every person, without regard at all to their
circumstances or position. Severity