20

- 4 -

(Letter to Bishop Elliott from Bishop Polk January 31st, 1857)

upon us presently, then let them approve our judgement and accept
our guidance ane come up to our help with the necessary material
aid and do their duty as me, as citizens and as churchmen and the
thing is done.

But all this requires "agitation". It is not to be
accomplished without it. The politicians understand this. Every
individual man in America is full of his own particular business
or fancy and if anyone wishes to call off his neighbor from
such attention to his affairs and fix his mind and enlist his feelings
about another matter, he has to go to him and get him to stop and
listen, and he has to unfold and explain and enforce; to arouse and
instruct and excite, until he gets his neighbors mind so full of
what he has to present, that if he does not become a propagandist
in turn, he at least becomes an ally, and so the feeble agitator
is ultimately the whole pool. I hope you are making good headway
in your part of the field, and that when your convention meets
you will be able to find your heart encouraged and your hands
strengthened and a cordial readiness to respond to any suggestions
you may think it expedient to make in its behalf.

I am pleased to say that things around me wear an en-
couraging aspect. Most of the city papers have notices the address
of the Bishops and strongly commended its object, some of them in
the most marked manner. The feeling among churchmen and others
is of a very cheering kind. I have had many offers of $1,000 each
when the time comes two parties have said they would give $5,000
each, one has said he would subscribe $25,000, and I am not in com-
munication with a gentleman who if things fo well, I am not without