The missionary work began now to open before us. The village at Lac-qui-parle consisted of about 400 persons, chiefly of the Wahpaton, or Leaf-village band of the Dakotas. They were very poor and very proud. Mr. Renville, as a half-breed and fur-trader, had acquired an unbounded influence over many of them. They were willing to follow his leading. And so the young men of his soldiers' lodge were the first, after his own family, to learn to read. On the Sabbath, there gathered into this lower room twenty or thirty men and women, but mostly women, to hear the Word as prepared by Dr. Williamson with Mr. Renville's aid. A few Dakota hymns had been made, and were sung under the leadership of Mr. Huggins or young Mr. Joseph Renville. Mr. Renville and Mr. Pond made the prayers in Dakota. Early in the year 1836, a church had been organized, which at this time contained seven native members, chiefly from Mr. Renville's household. And in the winter which followed our arrival nine were added, making a native church of sixteen, of which one half were full-blood Dakota women, and in the others the Dakota blood greatly predominated. One of the noted things that took place in those autumn days was the marriage of Mr. Gideon Holister Pond and Miss Sarah Poage. That was the first couple I married, and I look back to it with great satisfaction. The bond has been long since sundered by death, but it was a true covenant entered into by true hearts, and receiving, from the first, the blessing of the Master. Mr. Pond made a great feast, and "called the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind," and many such Dakotas were there to be called. _They_ could not recompense him by inviting him again, and it yet remains that "he shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Nov. 2. "Yesterday the marriage referred to was solemnized. Could I paint the assembly, you would agree with me that it was deeply and singularly interesting. Fancy, for a moment, the audience who were witnesses of the scene. The rest of our missionary band sat near those of our number who were about to enter into the new and sacred relationship, while most of the room was filled with our dark-faced guests, a blanket or a buffalo robe their chief 'wedding garment,' and coarse and tawdry beads, brooches, paint, and feathers their wedding ornaments. Here and there sat a Frenchman or half-breed, whose garb bespoke their different origin. No turkey or eagle feathers adorned the hair, or parti-colored paint the face, though even _their_ appearance and attire reminded us of our location in this wilderness.