188    THE MISSIONARIES RETURN TO THE STATES.



tween them that the Doctor should return to the states
with the St. Louis Company, to procure recruits for the
promising field of labor which they saw before them,
while Mr. Parker continued his journey to the Columbia
to decide upon the location of the missionary stations.
The difference of character of the two men was clearly
illustrated by the results of this understanding. Parker
went to Vancouver, where he was hospitably entertained,
and where he could inquire into the workings of the mis-
sionary system as pursued by the Methodist missionaries.
His investigations not proving the labor to his taste, he
sailed the following summer for the Sandwich Islands, and
thence to New York; leaving only a brief note for Doctor
Whitman, when he, with indefatigable exertions, arrived
that season among the Nez Perces with a missionary com-
pany, eager for the work which they hoped to make as
great as they believed it to be good.



VL1X;W ON 'XIH1 COLUIVMBIA R1IVERE.