Missionary
In 1834 Whitman applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They initially denied him for health reasons, but he was later accepted as a missionary doctor. In 1835, he traveled with the missionary Samuel Parker to present-day northwestern Montana and northern Idaho, to minister to bands of the Flathead and Nez Percé nations. During this journey, Whitman treated several fur trappers during an outbreak of cholera. At the end of their stay, he promised the Nez Percé that he would return with other missionaries and teachers to live with them.
After his return to New York, Whitman attended a speech by Parker, who then represented the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He called for missionaries for the West. Whitman volunteered again to go West.
Read more about this topic: Marcus Whitman
Famous quotes containing the word missionary:
“Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)