The transcontinental movement as a march of civilization to the west shore of the continent was in its incipiency a missionary enterprise. There is hardly any doubt, however, but that the home-seeking pioneer would have been on the way just as soon without the initiative of the missionary heroes and heroines. It is, nevertheless, the lasting glory of the Presbyterian and Congregational denominations that under the auspices of their missionary board the first American families successfully made the passage that was to sweep such a marvelous movement into its train. The Methodist Episcopal missionary enterprise antedated all others and played a conspicuous role in the political organization of the Oregon community, but it was not first in setting up the American home. So long as it lacked that it could not bear an American civilization, which was the crucial matter. It was Whitman who demonstrated the possibility of taking households across the plains, and this achievement, too, was a decisive initiative. But how did the impulse to make this dangerous and arduous journey to the then far-off wilderness of Oregon originate with the missionary and the home-seeking pioneers? The inception of the Oregon movement in both its missionary and its pioneering aspects is best understood when viewed as outbursts of missionary zeal and energy and pioneer daring and restlessness from vast stores of potential missionary and pioneer spirit existing in this country in the thirties. Missionary activity in the direction of Oregon was liberated by something like a spark, or, to change the metaphor, by a “long-distance” “Macedonian cry.” A delegation of four Nez Perces Indians from the upper waters of the Columbia arrived in St. Louis in 1832 in search of “the white man’s Book of Heaven.” An account of this singularly unique mission was published in the newspapers of the time. The story was made all the more effective and thrilling, with those of deep religious sensibilities, through its including what purported to be a verbatim report of a most pathetic farewell address made in General Clark’s office by one of the two surviving members of this mission. The closing passage of the speech, as it has been handed down, is as follows: “We are going back the long, sad trail to our people. When we tell them, after one more snow, in the big council that we did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men, nor by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. Our people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no Book of Heaven to make the way plain. We have no more words.”