When these adventurers in Christ's kingdom visited St. Louis, they found it a place of two thousand inhabitants,--"a tumble-down French village,--built mainly of wooden slabs and poles set vertically, and well daubed with mortar mixed with straw, though there were many log houses." In a school-room they delivered the first Presbyterian or Congregational sermons ever preached on the west side of the Mississippi. They were gratefully received, and had crowded audiences. The people would gladly have supported either one could he have stayed. But the immediate duty of these explorers for souls was to return to the churches which had sent them out, to report what they had discovered, and to beg that men be sent to these waste places which were waiting to be made to blossom. All New England was roused to effort by their appeal, and the next year ten or twelve men responded to the summons. In 1848 the word "gold" was whispered in California and heard all over the world. The gold-hunters pressed forward from every corner of the earth. It was not thought a hard thing to turn one's back on home, friends and country, for the sake of gold, though that glittering promise was, to most of those who searched, like the bag at the end of the rainbow, and all the riches of this world "make themselves wings." "The promises of God are sure," and the riches which He bestows are everlasting; and yet to the call, gold and glory, young men answer by the thousand, while to the cry, Christ and a crown, they respond by the dozen! "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." CHAPTER VIII. THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY--THE UNITED FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. During these two missionary journeys the heart of our apostle was swelling with the woes of the sin-bound, and his brain contriving for their release. Upon his return he settled in New York state, and spent two busy years in working out his purposes. While waiting for their maturity he was most of the time in the large cities, particularly New York. Here he spent what might have been leisure, in visiting the poor in the neglected districts. He also wrote many letters; and in the churches, and everywhere, and upon everybody, urged attention to the world's great needs, and their great duties. As the result of this planning, waiting and working, he was permitted to see formed the American Bible Society, and the United Foreign Missionary Society. On the subject of city evangelization, he advanced ideas which we at this striving time might well study.