THE LIFE

JOHN ELIOT

BY NEHEMIAH ADAMS

Pastor of Essex Street Church Boston

LIBRARY EDITION, 100 COPIES

BOSTON:

1870

BY THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE.

THE substance of this book is a Lecture delivers in

1842, before the Young Men's Missionary Association

of Boston. On application of the Publishing Com

mittee, the author has consented to enlarge it for

publication, as one of the Series of the Lives of the

New England Fathers.

SEAL OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS (OR SALEM) COLONY.

TRANSLATION.

Seal of the Governor and Colony of Massachusetts
Bay in New England.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Missionary object of the Pilgrims. Seal of Massachusetts Colony.

Reasons with the Pilgrims for leaving Holland. Extract from the

Royal Charter of the Plymouth Colony. Charter of the Salem

Company. Thoughts on this Continent as a field for Missionary

efforts. Account of the landing at Plymouth, and the first meeting ·

with the Indians. First Missionary efforts among them. Man-

ners and habits of the New England Indian. Numbers in the
various tribes. Reflections on the Missionary character and efforts
of the Pilgrims. The May-flower.

A PROMINENT object with the Pilgrim fathers
in coming hither, was, to preach the Gospel to the
Indians of this Continent.

Many popular orators and writers represent
them, as it were, following and worshiping a

goddess of liberty. But it was not the mere

liberty of believing and doing what they pleased
that they braved the ocean and the perils of this
wilderness. Two great motives influenced
them. For the liberty of worshiping God re-

8 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

cording to their own consciences, they “went
out not knowing,” as the event proved, “whither
they went” But this was not all; they had a
missionary object in coming here. .

It is an interesting fact that the original seal
of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, who arrived
and settled at Salem in 1628, and on it a North
American Indian, with these words proceeding
from his mouth, “Come over and help us.”

This device on the seal of their colony pub

lished to the world the fact that they regarded

themselves as foreign missionaries to North

America. This was also the case with their

brethren of the Plymouth Colony, who arrived

eight years before.

The Pilgrims had fled to Holland, from the

persecutions of the English Church. In the
account of their residence in Holland we find
some records which established beyond a doubt

the fact of their missionary intentions in coming

to these shores. Governor Bradford, in his His
tory of Plymouth, speaking of the Pilgrims
while yet in Holland, says, “This year, (1617,)
Mr. Robinson and his Church begin to think of
a remove to America, for several weighty rea
son, as (1.) The difficulties in Holland dis
couraged many from coming to them, out of
England, and obliged many to return. (2.)

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 9

By reason of these difficulties with the licen
tiousness of the youth, and temptations, of the
place, many of their children left their parents,
some of them becoming soldiers, others taking
to foreign voyages, and some to dissoluteness
and the danger of their souls, to the great grief
of their parents, and fear lest their posterity
through these temptations and examples should
degenerate, and religion die among them. (3.)
From an inward zeal and great hope of laying
some foundation or making way for propagating
the kingdom of Christ to the remote ends of the
earth, though they should be but as stepping
stones to others.”

They obtained letters patent from the crown
authorizing them to settle in North Virginia.
The following is an extract from the Royal

Charter, and is of the same purport with the

third reason assigned by Governor Bradford for
their removal to America. The Royal Charter
says,--“We have thought it fit, according to

our kingly duty—to second and follow God's
holy will, by which means we may with bold
ness go on to the settling of so hopeful a work

which tendeth to the reducing and conversion of
such savages as remain wandering in desolation

and distress, to civil society and Christian re
ligion.”

10 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

It is well known that the Colonists who
received this Charter, and sailed for North Vir
ginia, were driven into the waters of Cape
Cod, and thus unintentionally landed and settled

at Plymouth.

The Charter of “the Colony of Massachu
setts Bay,” who settled a few years after at
Salem, says, “To win and incite the natives of
that country to the knowledge and obedience of
the only true God and Saviour of mankind and

Christian faith, is, in our royal intention and
the adventurer's free profession, the principal
of the plantation.”

The Committee of the “Massachusetts”

Company, in their letter dated at Gravesend,

and addressed to Mr. Endicott, the leader, and

afterward the Governor, of the Massachusetts or
Salem Colony, say, “For that the propagating

the Gospel is the thing we profess above all in
settling this plantation, we have been careful to
make plentiful provision of good ministers.”*

* See Laws of Mass. I., page 77, Sect. 8, 9.

“Whereas one end in planting these parts was to propagate the

true religion unto the Indians, and that divers of them are become
subject unto the English, and have engaged themselves to be ready
and willing to understand the law of God: It is therefore ordered that
such necessary and wholesome laws which are in force, and may be
from time to time, to reduce them to civility of life, shall be
once a year, if the times be safe, made known to them by such fit

persons as the general court shall appoint.''

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 11

It is interesting to think of this Continent as
having been the object of missionary zeal and
efforts with the pilgrim fathers. The place

which this continent occupies on the globe is
peculiar and interesting. The numerous nations
of the old world are crowded together in one
hemisphere, and this continent is the prominent
object of the other. It did not seem presump
tion to the pilgrims to believe that God laid its
deep foundations by itself, in the midst of the
oceans rolling between it and the rest of the
globe, for some purpose as singular as its posi
tion. In the writings of ancient poets there are
remarkable allusions to this continent, when as
yet it was undiscovered. Seneca, a Latin writer,

who lived at the beginning of the Christian era,
has in his “Medea” this declaration: “The
time will come in remote years when the ocean

will unloose the present boundaries of nature,

and a great country will appear. Another Ty-

phis will discover new worlds, and Thule will
no longer be the limit of the earth.”* Homer
and Horace had sung of Islands west of Africa,
the Atlantides, which were “the Elysian fields.''

* “Venient annis

“Secula seris, quibus Oceanus
Vincula rerum, laxet, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Typhis que novos
Deteget orbes; necsit terries
Ultlma Thule”

Meea, Aet. 3, v. 375

12 LIFE OF JOHN ELOT.

Hanno, the Carthaginian general and great
navigator, had sailed from the pillars of Hercu
les, (the straits of Gibraltar,) westward, thirty
days. Some suppose that he must have seen

America, or some of the neighboring islands.*

Columbus verified the dreams and surmises of
the world; the Cabots pursued his sublime dis
coveries, and they, with their Bristol crews,

long accustomed to Icelandic fisheries, found

this continent. New adventurers carried home

some of the native Indians; and, at length, a

new Continent, inhabited by wild men, became
the subject of intense interest to, the civilized
world. Our pious forefathers, while yet in the
old world, fancied that they heard the Macedo-
nian cry from the Indians here, and it quick-
ened their flight, as they say, “to follow Christ
into a waste howling wilderness.”

Having been driven into the waters of Cape

Cod, instead of North Virginia, and making a

safe harbor on Saturday, the Pilgrims fell on

their knees and blessed the God of heaven. The
Sabbath came; the Mayflower riding at anchor,
and the exploring party in the shallop, kept the
first Sabbath of the Lord which, perhaps, had
ever been recognized in this region, since God

rested from his works.

“America known to the Ancients,” Boston, 1778.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 13

“Monday.” says Prince, in his New England
Chronology, “the people go ashore to refresh
themselves;--the whales play round about
them, and the greatest store of fowl they ever
saw. But the earth here a company of sand,
hills, and the water so shallow near the shore,
they were forced to wade a bow-shot or two to
get to land, which being freezing weather,
affected them with grievous coughs and colds,

which after proves the death of many. When
they had marched a mile southward, they see

five or six savages whom they follow ten miles
till night, but could not overtake them, and

lodge in the woods. The next day they come
to a place of graves, then to some heaps of sand,

when they dig into them, and find several bas-

kets full of Indian corn, and take some, for

which they purpose to give the natives full sat-

isfaction as soon as they could meet with any of
them.” Two days after, they returned to bor-

row more corn; the ground had frozen a foot
deep, but they made up their corn, says Gover-

nor Morton, to ten bushels; the next day some
of the party, having spent the night there, dug
again into some little hillocks, but they found
that instead of being cornhills they were graves.
By the overruling providence of God, the corn
which they had thus borrowed with such good

VOL. III, 2

14 LIFE OF JOHN ELlOT.

intent to repay, furnished them with seed for the

ensuing spring. Here we have the first scene

of their approach to the wild objects of their

pious and benevolent endeavors.

During the 1nonth of February, after their
arrival, the colony were afterwards informed
that the Indians assembled all their Powwaws, or

the conjurers of the country, to curse them with

their horrid ceremonies and incantations. They
held their assembly for this purpose in a dark
and dismal swamp.

On the morning of March 16th, however,

they say a savage boldly came alone along the
houses straight to the rendezvous, and surprised
them with calling out, “Welcome, Englishmen!
Welcome, Englishmen! “It seems that he had
learned some broken English from the fishermen
of Nova Scotia. He said that his name was
Samoset, that he was sagamore or lord of a

country “a day’s sail thence with a great

wind,” or five days land travel. He told them

that four years ago all the inhabitants of the
place where they then were, (now Plymouth,)
died of an extraordinary plague; that there was
neither man, woman, nor child remaining. At
night they lodged and watched him. A few
days after he returned with an Indian named
Squanto, whom a man by the name of Hunt had

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 15

carried to Spain with nineteen others, and who
by some means went to England, and lived in
Cornhill, London, with Mr. John Slanie, mer-

chant. He could speak a little English, and

thus he was extremely useful to the colonists in

assisting them to trade and make treaties with

the surrounding Indians. They endeavored to
conciliate the natives, but wisely mingled inti
mations that they were prepared to resist them
if attacked.

The treacherous tribe of Narragansett Indians,

with five thousand fighting men, who at first
made a treaty with the settlers, showed signs on
one occasion of hostility. Canonicus, their chief
Sachem, sent a bundle of arrows, tied with a
snake’s skin, which Squanto told them meant a
challenge. Governor Bradford and his Council
sent them word that if they had rather have war
than peace, they might begin when they would;
they had done the Indians no wrong, nor did
they fear them; nor would the Indians find
them unprepared. Then, with some wit, the
Governor sent them, by another messenger, the

snake's skin filled with powder and bullets; but

they refused to receive it, and sent it back.

Thus, after various alarms, and treaties, the
pilgrims and fortified themselves in the country,
and individuals among them had begun the

16 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

pious work of instructing some of the young
Indians in the Christian religion.

In 1621, one year after the arrival of Ply-

mouth, Elder Robert Cushman sent word to his

friends in England that many of the Indians,

especially the younger of them, were teachable;

that if the Colony had means they would bring

up hundreds of them to labor, and learning, and

that the young men in England who desired to fur-

ther the Gospel among these poor heathen,

would do well to come over and spend their

estates, time, and labor, in so doing.

During the few first years after the settlement

at Plymouth, several of the natives gave evi-

dence of conversion, and instances of happy

death occurred among them. But the hardships

and trials incident to a removal into this wilder-

newss delayed the systematic and general efforts

of the settlers to convert the Indians. Indi-

viduals, however, were laboring among them

with success. In 1636, the Plymouth Colony

enacted laws to provide for the preaching of the

Gospel among the Indians, and ten years after,

the Massachusetts Colony passed a similar act.

In 1675, it was ascertained that the whole

number of Indians in New England, beginning
as far east as the St. Croix River, was about
fifty thousand. Of these, about twelve thousand

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 17

were in the neighborhood of the Massachusetts

and the Plymouth Colonies.

At the settlement of this country there were
five principal nations, or sachemships, of Indians,
in this part of New England, viz. 1. The Pequots;

2. The Narragansetts; 3. The Pawkunnaw-
kuts; 4. The Pawtucketts; 5. The Massachu
setts. Each of these nations included several
tribes, governed by sagamores.

The Pequots formerly had 4000 warriors; in

1674, 300.

The Narragansetts formerly had 5000 war
riors; in 1674, 1000.

The Pawkunnnawkuts formerly had 3000 war-

riors; in 1674, nearly extinct.

The Pawtuckets formerly had 3000 war

riors; in 16741, 250.

The Massachusetts formerly had 3000 war-

riors; in 1674, 300.

The Pequots inhabited the most southerly

parts of New England, their country for the
most part fell under the Connecticut jurisdic
tion. Their principal sachem lived at or near
New London, called, in their language Pequot.
The Narragansetts occupied Rhode Island,

and other islands in Narragansett bay.

The Pawkunnawkuts inhabited the region of
the Plymouth Colony, and their sachem held

18 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

sway over the Sagamores of Nantucket, Martha's
Vineyard, and neighboring places. A few years
before the arrival of the Pilgrimns, a great num-

ber of this nation of Indians as before stated,
were swept away by a plague, and thus the
way was opened for the entrance of the Pil-
grims.

The Pawtuckets lived to the north, and

northeast of the Massachusetts Indians. They

were almost wholly destroyed by the plague
just mentioned.

The Massachusetts Indians dwelt principally

about the parts of Massachusetts bay which

were first settled by the English, and bordering,

some of them, on the region of the Pawkunnaw-

kuts. They were very numerous and powerful.

Their chief sachem held rule over many petty

chiefs. This people was also visited by the

plague in 1612-13, which destroyed the most

of them, and prepared the way for the English

settlers.

This fact has often brought to mind these

words of David: “We have heard with our

ears, O God, our fathers have told us what

work thou didst in their day, in the times of
old. How thou didst drive out the heathen

with they hand, and plantedst them; how thou

didst afflict the people and cast them out. For

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 19

they got not the land in possession by their own
sword, neither did their own arm save them;
but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the
light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a
favor unto them.”

An early New England writer* says, that he
had not been able to learn accurately the nature
of the disease or plague, which depopulated the
Indian tribes in the remarkable manner already
described; but that he had “discoursed” with
some old Indians, who told him that the patients

were “all over exceedingly yellow,” and this they
described by showing him a yellow gar-

ment which the bodies of the victims resembled

in color, both before and after death. There is

a tradition that a Frenchman, who not long

before this plague, had fallen into their hands

by shipwreck, told them, as some of the surviv-

in shipmates reported, just before he died by

their hands, that “God was angry with them

for their wickedness, and would not only destroy

them all, but would also people their country

with men who would not live after their brutish

manners.” Those infidels then blasphemously

replied, that God could not kill them; which

blasphemous mistake was confuted by an hor-

rible and unusual plague, whereby they were

* Mather.

20 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

consumed in such vast multitudes, that our first

planter's found the land almost covered with their

unburied carcases, and they that were left alive

were smitten into awful and humbler regards of

the English by the terrors which the French-

man's prophecy had imprinted on them.

When the Pilgrims in Holland thought of
coming to this country, some of them hesitated
for several reasons, and among others through
their fear of the savages, who they heard were
“cruel, barbarous, and treacherous, being most
furious in their rage, and merciless where they
overcome, not being content only to kill and
take away life, but delight to torment men in
most bloody manner that may be, flaying men
alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the
points and members of others by piecemeals,
and broiling them on the coals, and causing

men to eat the collops of their flesh in their

sight whilst they live; with other cruelties hor

rible to be related.”* Some were therefore in
favor of settling in Guiana, in South America.
But they feared the jealousy of the Spaniards,
and finally concluded to settle within the juris
diction of the company of Virginia, where the
English, in 1607, had made a settlement. In
this way, they supposed that they could also

* Governor Bradford's History of Plymouth,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 21

have better access to the savages, “to reduce
them to civil society, and the Christian religion.”
But God brought them by a way they knew not,
having first in part cut off the heathen nations
to bring them in.

The Mayflower sailed from Holland, Sep
tember 6, 1620, for the Hudson River. But
they were driven into the waters of Cape Cod,
and it was a current belief that the shipmaster

was bribed by the Dutch to change her course,
because the Dutch wished to settle in the region

for which the Pilgrims embarked. But some of

the best authorities deny this, and say that the
change of their course was accidental.

There is so much connection between climate

and characters that we may reasonably suppose

it to have been the intention of Providence to

plant the Pilgrims in this cold region, and on

this hard soil, that they might be and do that

which is proved to have been their high destiny

to be and to accomplish. Whereas, had they

settled in a warmer and more enervating lati-

tude, we cannot believe that such a New Eng-

land as we now behold would have arisen; it

would have been easier for the settlers to have

borne the imposition of slavery from the mother

country, whereas here in Massachusetts the sturdy

vigor and independence which were borne and

22 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

nourished on this rocky and sandy soil, grew
impatient of slavery, and soon threw it off, and
hence in part the present difference between the
North and the South, in some of the essential
elements of natural prosperity. God brought
the Pilgrims into these bays and harbors, and to
this northern soil, because here the qualities
necessary to their future usefulness and great-
ness as a nation could be most successfully
developed and strengthened. Instead of reducing
the savages to slavery as they might have done
had the institution of slavery been fastened upon
them in southern regions, they “reduced the
savages to civil society, and the Christian re
ligion.” Let us return for a moment to the
landing of the Pilgrims.

When the May-flower had cast anchor, the
Pilgrims fitted up the little shallop which they
had brought in their vessel, and coasted the
Cape for about a month to determine on the best

place for landing and settlement. Having at
length fixed on a place, the shallop, with the

exploring party came to anchor on Saturday,

9^th of December, corresponding to December

20, New Style. The Sabbath dawned upon

them, but the exploring party remained on
board, notwithstanding the inmates of the May-
f1ower were still at anchor, waiting to know the

LIFE OF JOHN ELI OT. 23

result of the exploration. How beautiful and
striking was the coincidence of their arriving at

Plymouth on the eve of the Sabbath. What a

Sabbath it must have been to them. Not only

was their comfortless and perilous voyage in a

crowded vessel, and their anxious search for a
landing place now over, but their persecutions
in the old world, their oppressive treatment from
the Established Church for not conforming to
rites and practices which they could not observe,
had now come to an end. Now they had found

a new world where they might believe and wo-

ship as they pleased. Now they would no
longer be taxed for the support of worship in

which they had no share. Now their ministers

would no longer be ill-used or nick-named, for
not conforming to unscriptural practices; now
they would not be obliged to keep Lent, and
Ash-Wednesday, Candlemas, Christmas, and
All-Saints'-day, in a manner repugnant to their
consciences. As they looked on this great wil
derness, free from all corruptions of man in the

worship of God, and pure in that respect as the

virgin snows that covered the evergreens, and
sheeted the old sand wastes, and shone on
the distant hills, they could breathe freely, as
they said in the words which indicate the essen-

tial spirit of their faith, God is a spirit, and

24 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

they that worship him, must worship him in

spirit and in truth. The world has never seen
such a sight, before or since, as that shallop and
the May-flower in Plymouth Bay, with the pro
genitors of this great and glorious New Eng-

land; fleeing from the old world, arriving at
this new world and keeping Sabbath at anchor
in these waters. What has ever happened to
be likened to it since the time when Noah and

his family sailed away from the old world,

which had corrupted itself before God, and

transplanted the religion of the true God for a
new beginning? It would have been interesting
to have heard the prayer, and songs of praise,
and words of Scripture, with which they kept
the Sabbath in their floating Bethels. We no
tice here that Puritan regard for the Sabbath

which has ever characterized New England, and

on which her safety so much depends. How

natural it would have been for the voyagers to
have leaped ashore at the first moment of their
arrival in the harbor which they had concluded
to make their home. How many passengers

now in similar circumstances, would deny them-

selves the pleasure of exchanging the wearisome
confinement on ship-board, for the excitement
and satisfaction of exploring their new home?
But the Pilgrims would not begin the work of

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 25

their settlement, of removing any of their effects
from the vessel, on the Lord's day, and since
the time when God rested from his work on the
Sabbath, there has not been a more sublime act
of rest and of worship, than was observed by
that Pilgrim band.

All this was in accordance with their charac
ter and intentions as a missionary band, and for
its relation to this view of their character we
have dwelt at large upon this incident in their history.

It cannot be impressed too deeply upon our
minds that our forefathers did not come here
merely to “enjoy their liberty,” not merely to
flee from persecution, not to increase their

worldly estate; they came here, among other
good reasons, as they expressly declare, to ex-

tend the kingdom of Christ, and the Royal

Charter professed that the royal object in grant
ing it was that they might reduce such savages
as they found wandering in desolation and dis-

tress to civil society and the Christian religion.
Does anyone cherish a feeling of reverence and
love for these pilgrims in view of their sacrifices
and efforts to found these institutions which we
possess, who yet feels no interest in the work, of
propagating the gospel to ends of the earth?
Let him consider that a company of Christian

VOL. III. 3

26 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

missionaries going from this land and settling in
India, or Africa, or Oceanica, may be the
founders of just such institutions us we enjoy,
among the people to whom they are sent. Let
every missionary consider that in distant years
he may be justly regarded us a pilgrim-father to
some portion of the earth for whom he may
have done as much as the New England Pil-
grims have done for New England. The object
of Christian missions is to re-produce and mul-
tiply our Christian institutions in heathen and
pagan lands. The opportunity of laying founda-
tions in heathen wilds, similar to those which the
Pilgrims laid here, has not come to an end.
Many a missionary bark may yet be, essentially,
a May-flower to distant parts of the earth.
Some islands which were filled with savages as
barbarous as our Indians, have had their inde-
pendence recognized by Christian nations, and
have taken their place among the nations of the
earth; and that band of American missionaries
who left these shores for the Sandwich Islands in
1820, and who went round Cape Horn singing
the old hymn in the tune of Melton Mowbray,

“Head of the church triumphant,
We cheerfully adore thee.'' &.c.

and who planted the Gospel on those islands
will no doubt in after times have their names

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 27

enshrined by a grateful posterity in those distant
seas. The little schooner which the Rev.
John Williams, the martyr of Rarotonga, built
with his own hand, to visit the islands of the
Harvey group, was a real “May-flower.”
Prophetic visions of the effects of the Gospel
we sec fulfilled on these shores and around the
globe. Here, emphatically, “instead of the
thorn has come up the fir-tree, and instead of
the brier the myrtle-tree.” In what way can
we cherish the memory of our Pilgrim fathers
better than to keep alive in us and our children
that zeal to spread the Christian religion and
Christian institutions, which was one of the
strong impulses that bore them across the flood?
As the missionary spirit was the native air in
which the pilgrim faith was born and nurtured,
we may believe that the same spirit will most
effectually cherish those institutions and laws
which are the fruit of their wisdom. That spirit
is a sincere desire to see the glory of God
promoted in the world, a willingness to make
efforts and sacrifices “that his way may be
known on earth, his saving health among all na-
tions.”
“The May-flower”! That name must have
been proposed by some gentle wife, or by some
sweet child, to the man who built that favored

28 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

vessel! She was, in her seasonableness, more
than a May-flower; she was the Crocus among
the eternal snows and the dreary winter of this
western savage world. In the selection of her for
the great mission which she accomplished, angels
might have said to her, ns they come to be min-
istering spirits to those in her who were to be,
in more than one sense, “heirs of salvation,”
as Gabriel said to Mary, “Hail, thou that art
highly favored-the Lord is with thee!” The
name of this vessel is one of those instances, of
which we see so many in the word, the provi-
dence of God, in which “"the beauty of the
Lord our God” appears in connection with his
acts of renown. To the cold eye of reason that
name was only a mercantile accident; the eye of
faith is willing to be accounted visionary while it
sees in it that same hand which, after the deluge,
selected the rainbow instead of a periodical tem-
pest, or a Dead Sea, as the memorial of a cove-
nant with the earth.
The painting of the Landing of the Pilgrims,
by, Weir, justly represents some of the pilgrim
company as of cultivated and even polished ap-
pearance and manners; they were not the
offscouring of the earth. They were men and,
women of whom, in their day, the world was
not worthy, For scholarship, intelligence, and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 29

moral worth, the Pilgrims and their associates
in the old countries would have been ornaments
to the land which chased them away. The
reader will find this illustrated in a satisfactory
manner in the Life of the Rev. John Cotton, by
the Rev. A. W. M'Clure, in the first two vol-
umes in this series of the Lives of eminent N.
E. Puritans

30 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

CHAPTER II.

Description of the Indians. Their manners, habits, mode of life, &c.
Efforts to convert them, previous to Eliot’s labors.

SOME account of the manners and habits of
the Indians, as our forefathers and their success-
sors found them, will be necessary that we may
appreciate the labors and self-denial which were
required of those who instructed these sons of
the forest in religion and civilization. A correct
knowledge of their original condition dispels
the romantic associations which many have with
the name of a North American Indian. The
lowest degradation had been reached by these
savages. The laws of a people are a true pic-
ture of the people, and some of the laws which
the Indians enacted when they began to be civil-
ized, reveal the misery and filthiness from which
they began at last to be recovered. This will
be illustrated as we proceed.
We will speak first of the personal appear-
ance of the Indian.
Their skin was of a tawny color, a yellowish,
dark complexion. Their form and limbs were

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 31

well proportioned, and it was seldom that a
crooked person was found among them. Their
hair was long, black, and coarse, without curl-
ing; their eyes black, without lustre. In their
general appearance they were so much like
the Moors of Africa, that many have supposed
them to have come originally from that part of
the world.
     They had many wives, but one of them was
chief in her husband's regard. They put away
their wives, and the wife also left her husband
when offended with him.
     Their revengeful disposition is proverbial.
The relatives of an injured or murdered Indian
regarded his wrong as done to them, and they
sought satisfaction in the death of the offender, or
in the payment of wampum, (or shells.) which
passed with them for money.
      They were an idle race, especially the men.
Tillage was chiefly performed by the women,
though to but little extent. The women also
carried burdens, as in removing from place to
place. They also prepared the food.
     Their wigwams were made with slim poles
fixed in the ground, bent, and fastened at the
top with the bark of trees. The best of them
were made tight and warm with the whole
barks or trees, pressed when green by a heavy

32 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

weight of timber. A common sort of bulrushes
woven together, made mats for the covering of
the poorer houses. The houses varied in size,
from twenty to forty feet square, and some were
from sixty to a hundred feet long, and thirty feet
broad. In the smaller houses a fire was kindled
in the centre, but in the larger, several fires
were made for the convenience of the inmates.
A hole in the top of the house served the place
of a chimney, and on the top of the house a mat
was suspended, to serve the purpose of a venti-
lator to the smoke, being set to the windward
side. Their bedsteads were made of rude boards
split from the tree, and raised about a foot from
the ground, covered with skins, or with mats of
woven grass, or bulrushes.
Their principal food was a kind of pottage in
which it would be difficult to say what article
prevailed. Indian corn, kidney beans, all kinds
or flesh and fish, cut in small pieces with the
bones, many kinds of roots, artichokes, ground-
nuts, squashes, oak acorns, walnuts, and chest-
nuts, were boiled together. The nuts being
dried, and powdered, were boiled as flour to
thicken the mess. They made of cake of parched
corn, which they called nokake. This they
tool, with them in their travels, and is said
to have been so hearty a kind of food, that they

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 33

subsisted on it many days in their wanderings
from place to place.
      Their household utensils corresponded in
simplicity to their food, and mode of cooking.
The pots were made of clay, in the shape of an
egg without the top. They were glad to receive
pots of metal, as the earth of which they made
their brittle vessels was scarce and dear. They
used a kind of wood which was not liable to
split, for dishes, spoons, and ladles. Their
water pails were made of birch bark, folded
square, with a handle or bail. Some of them
held two or three gallons, and they could make
one of them in the space of an hour. They
wrought pictures of birds, beasts, fishes and
flowers of divers colors in their baskets, which
were made of corn husks, silk grass, and wild
hemp.
      They formerly used no drink but water,
though they soon learned from the settlers the
manufacture and use of cider. When they be-
came acquainted with intoxicating drinks, they
showed a violent love for them, by which their
savage passions and propensities were fearfully
excited.
      Their clothing was, at first, of skins, and some
had mantles of birds' feathers, twilled together.
Even the most barbarous of them were decent

34 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

in covering their persons, and were never seen
naked in public.
One of their principal remedies in sickness
was, to put the patient, and sometimes several
patients together, in one rude stone house, which
they would heat by building fires round it, and
having thus put the sick into a violent perspire-
tion, they would plunge them into a neighboring
brook.
They divided time into sleeps, and moons,
and winters. It is a curious fact that they called
the Constellation, Charles' Wain, by the same
name with the English, the Bear. Like the
early eastern nations, they seem to pon-
dered the face of the heavens, and to have made
figures of the stars.
Their money consisted of shells, or strings of
shells, the black: being double in value to the
white. The mints of their money seem to
have been at Block Island, and Long Island,
upon whose sandy flats and shores, these welk
shells were chiefly found. It was called worn-
pompeagne, or, wompeague, and by contrac-
tion; wompum, or, wampum. They redeemed
captives, paid tribute, made satisfaction for
wrongs, and murders, and purchased pence of
their more powerful neighbors, with strings of
this wampum.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 35

     Their weapons were bows and arrows, clubs,
tomahawks, made of wood like a pole axe, with
a sharp stone in the head. They used targets
or shields of bark.
     They formerly smeared their skin with bears'
grease, but when the English swine afforded
them lard, they used it as a substitute, and thus
having anointed themselves, they painted their
faces with vermilion, or red, and powdered
their heads. Sometimes they painted one half
of the face black, and the other white, and so,
with various colors, deformed their visages, the
women, especially, doing this, and the warriors
thereby making themselves hideous in battle.
Widows mourning for their husbands, painted
their faces wholly black. The men preparing for
war put their hair in a roll, and surmounted it
with turkey's or eagle's feathers, with other fan-
tastic and showy decorations.
      They took great pleasure in dancing, the
men only dancing, and they singly, (except in
the war dance,) with uncouth and antic gestures
and movements of the whole body, the specta-
tors singing or whooping. The dancer took off
his ornaments one by one as he danced, and
gave them away to those who looked on, and
when he had given away all that he had upon
him, and was weary, another would succeed

36 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

him, and thus succeeding each other they would
spend the nights of a whole week together,
sleeping by day. At such dancings accompa-
nied with revelings, chiefly held after harvest,
they were addicted to many evil practices.
      They were a hospitable race. Strangers
were furnished with the best food and lodging,
and were served before themselves.
      Their government was for the most part
monarchical, the chief sachem or sagamore mak-
ing his will the law, though there were chief men
associated with him as counselors. In some of
the tribes the influence of the head men was
greater than in others, making the government
a mixture of monarchy and aristocracy.
      They had no idols made with hands, but
being ignorant of the true God, they adored
natural objects; the sun, the moon, the earth,
fire, and other things. They supposed that
everything in nature has a god in it, or belong-
ing to it, but fire they believed to be itself a
god. They believed that there was one god
in the southwest, who was the chief deity.
     The Indians had priests or powows, or,
powaws, who were conjurers, who, with horrid
rites and incantations, told their fortunes, advised
them in their affairs, yelled over them in their

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 37

sick and dying moments, and performed re-
ligious worship with terrific noises and actions,

          “Like stabled wolves or tigers at their prey,
          Doing abhorred rites to Hecate.”

    The Indians believed in the immortality of
the soul, that the good are admitted to a spleen-
did entertainment, and the wicked wander in
agony forever, and that there is no resurrection
of the body for good or bad.
     As to the origin of the Indians, Roger Wil-
liams has well expressed the truth on the sub-
ject, in his Key into the language of the Indians
of New England. *
     “From Adam and Noah that they spring, it
is granted on all hands. But for their later
descent, and whence they came into these parts,
it seems hard to find, as to find the well-head
of some fresh stream which running many miles
out of the country to the salt ocean, hath met
with many mixing streams by the way.”
       Mr. William gives many particulars of their
manners and customs; some of which are here
added.
     Their nokake, or nokehick, parched meal, was
carried by each man on a journey, or in war, in
a basket, fastened to his back, or in a hollow

* Mass. Hist. Soc., Coll. 1794., p. 205.

VOL. III. 4

38 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

belt. With a spoonful of this meal, and a
spoonful of water from the brook. Mr. Williams
says he has many a time made a good supper.
This parched meal, boiled with water, he says,
is the wholesomest diet they have. Nawsaump
was a kind of meal pottage unparched, and
from this the English derived their samp, or
Indian corn, broken and boiled, and eaten, hot
or cold, with milk or butter; “which are mer-
cies beyond the natives’ plain water, and which
is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English
bodies."
Tobacco was in general use among them, and
was the only plant which the men cultivated,
the women attending to the rest. The following
remark, by Mr. Williams, is in good illus-
tration of former views and feelings with regard
to the use of spirituous liquors, “I never see
any take tobacco so excessively as I have seen
men in Europe; and yet excess were more
tolerable in them, because they want the re-
freshing of beer and wine, which God had
vouchsafed Europe.”*
They made up a fire, when they were lying
down to sleep, summer and winter. “Their
fire,” says Williams, “is instead of our bed
clothes. And so themselves, und any that

* Key, p. 213.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 39

have occasion to lodge with them, must be con-
tent to turn often to the fire, if the night be
cold; and they who first wake must repair the
fire.”
     Bad dreams they considered as threatenings
from God; and when they happened to them,
they would engage in prayer at all times of the
night. An Indian once dreamed that the sun,
whom they worship as a god, darted a beam into
his breast. This he took for an admonition of
his death. He called his friends and neighbors
together, and prepared some refreshment for
them; but himself remained awake, and fasting,
for ten days and nights in great humiliation and
distress.
    “The women nurse all the children them-
selves; yet a rich or high woman maintains a
nurse to tend the child.”
     “They have amongst them natural fools, either
so born, or accidentally deprived of reason.”
      “The toothache is the only pain which will
force their stout hearts to cry. I have never
heard any cries among them like those of men
in the toothache. In this pain they use a cer-
tain root dried, not much unlike our ginger.”
     “They are most skillful in cutting off the
heads of their enemies in fight. I know the
man, yet living, who pretended to fall from his

40 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

own camp to the enemy, proffered his service in
the front with thorn against his own army. He
drew them out to battle, keeping in front; but,
on a sudden, shot their chief leader and captain,
and, in a trice, fetched off his head, and returned
immediately to his own again. His act was
false and treacherous; yet herein appear policy,
stoutness, and activity.”
     “Their desire of and delight in news, is great
as the Athenians. A stranger that can relate
news in their own language they will style him
manittoo, a god.”
      In hearing news they sit in a circle, two,
three, or four deep. “I have seen near a thou-
sand in a round where English could not well
near half so many have sitten.”
      They frequently inquired “Why came the
Englishmen hither?” The explanation most
commonly believed among themselves at first
was, that the English wanted fire-wood, and so
removed to these parts, as the Indians remove
when they have used up the wood around them.
      They kept the time of the day and the night
with great accuracy, by observing the sun, moon,
and stars. Living abroad in the fields and
sleeping much out of doors, even the young
children were expert in telling the time. The
Indians were punctual in their promises as to

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 41

time. Mr. Williams says they once charged
him with lying for not being punctual, though
necessarily delayed.
English travelers were struck with the paths
which the bare and tough feet of the Indians had
made in stony places. One writer says that he
has known many of them to run between eighty
and a hundred miles in a summer's day, and
return within two days. He says they were so
thoroughly acquaint with the interior of the
country by means of hunting, that they have
guided travelers forty miles without any path,
They coveted horses above other beasts, prefer-
ring the ease of riding even to the comfort of
milk and butter from the cow. On meeting
with one another in travel, they were very
happy and joyful; and striking fire, with stones
or sticks, took tobacco, and set down to talk.
It was quite rare to meet an old man or a lame
man with a stall, their constitutions being gen-
erally robust.
The English settlers were greatly struck with
the purity of the air and of the water in New
England.* But as New England is about
twelve degrees south of England, the greater
cold of this region is explained, Mr. Williams
thinks, by the fact that main lands and conti-

* See Appendix, B.
4*

42 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

nents are colder than islands. “England's
winds are sea winds, which are commonly more
thick and vapory, and warmer winds. The
northwest wind, which occasioneth New Eng-
land cold, comes over the cold, frozen land, and
over many millions of loads of snow. And yet
the pure wholesomeness of the land is wonder-
ful, and the warmth of the sun such in the
sharpest weather, that I have often seen the na-
tives’ children run about stark naked in the
coldest days and the Indian men and women
lie by a fire in the woods in the coldest nights;
and I have often been out myself such nights
without fire, mercifully and wonderfully pre-
served.”
It is observed by many writers that the In-
dians had a considerable mixture of sadness in
their disposition. Though nature here was
profuse in wild animals for food, and fish, and
fowl, and fruits, the savages were subject to
much suffering from causes which they had no
knowledge to understand nor skill to prevent.
Their superstitions joined with their savage
vices made them afraid. It would seem also, in
noticing the proofs of this disposition to melan-
choly, that the corning event of their disappear-
ance as a race had cast its shadow upon their
spirits. Mr. Williams says that they dislike

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 43

cloths inclining to white, “but preferred to
have a sad color, without any whitish hairs,
suiting with their own natural temper, which
inclines to sadness.”*
     In the spirit with which our fore fathers came
hither, seeking the conversion of the red race,
good men from time to time pursued different
measures for their spiritual good. But while
other men deserve great praise for their zeal and
industry in this benevolent work, it was reserved
to JOHN ELIOT to gain for himself the name of
the Apostle to the Indians. The way in which
he obtained it will now appear, and also some
account of his life and character, with further
notices respecting the Indians.
      Though individuals had incidentally labored
among the Indians for their spiritual good before
the Apostle Eliot began his efforts to give them
the Gospel, and some useful impressions had
been made on some of their minds, the first sys-
tematic efforts for their conversion were made
by him. Roger Williams' narrative was printed
in Loudon, in 1643. Eliot began to preach in
the Indian tongue in 1646. Mr. Williams says,
     “Many solemn discourses I have had with
all sorts of nations of them, from one end of
the country to the other, so far as opportunity,
and the little language I have, could reach.

* See Appendix, C.

44 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

     “I know there is no small preparation in the
hearts of multitudes of them. I know their
many solemn confessions to myself, and one to
another, of their last wandering conditions.
     "I know not with how little knowledge and
grace of Christ the Lord may save; and there-
fore neither will despair, nor report much.
    “Two days before the death of Wequash, the
Pequot captain, as I passed up to Quunnihticut
(Connecticut) river, it pleased my worthy friend,
Mr. Fenwick, whom I visited at his house in
Saybrook fort, at the mouth of that river, to tell
me that my old friend Wequash lay very sick.
I desired to see him, and himself was pleased to
be my guide two miles where Wequash lay.
    “Amongst other discourses concerning his
sickness and death, in which he freely bequeathed
his son to Mr. Fenwick, I closed with him con-
cerning his soul. He told me that some two or
three years before, he had lodged at my house,
where I acquainted him with the condition of
all mankind, and his own particular; how
God created man and all things; how man fell
from God, and his present enmity against God
and the wrath of God against him till repent-
ance. Said he, your words were never out of
my heart to this present; and, said he, ‘Me
much pray to Jesus Christ.’ I told him so did

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 45

many English, French, and Dutch, who had
never turned to God nor loved him. He replied
in broken English: “Me so big naughty heart:
me heart all one stone!’ Savoring expressions
using to breathe from compunct and broken
hearts, and a sense of inward hardness and un-
brokenness. I had many discourses with him
in this life; but this was the sum of our last
parting, until our general meeting."*
We now come to the history of the man
by whom the work of converting and civilizing the
Indians was carried out with the most signal
success.

* Roger Williams’ Key, p. 26.

46 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

CHAPTER III.

John Eliot. Birth and Education. Associated with Rev. Thomas
Hooker. Arrives at Boston. Settles in Roxbury. Anecdote.
Discovery of Spot Pond. Marriage, Christians and Ministerial
character. His zeal for common School Education. Notices of
his personal character. His Congregational Sentiments. Remarks
upon them. Mr. Eliot's children. His prayers His preaching
Infant Baptism.

JOHN ELLIOT was born in Nasing, Essex, Eng-
land, in the year 1604. All that is known of
his parents is, that they were eminently pious,
to which Mr. Eliot bore testimony, when he
wrote in after life these words: “I do see that
it was a great favor of God unto me to season
my first years with the fear of God, the word,
and prayer.”
He was educated in England at the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, and was distinguished for his
love of the languages, in Hebrew and Greek.
There is a connection between this fact and his
labors in New England in acquiring the Indian
tongue and translating the Bible and other books
into it.
The Rev. Thomas Hooker, afterwards the

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 47

first Pastor of the Church in Cambridge, New
England, who afterwards removed with his
Church to Hartford, Connecticut, had been si-
lenced for his conscientious scruples at certain
rites and observances in the Church of England,
after exercising the ministry four years. At the
suggestion and request of distinguished indi-
viduals, he established a school in the town of
Little Braddow, near Chelmsford, in the county
of Essex, England. Mr. Eliot was an usher in
this school. In this school several individuals
were trained up who became eminently useful.
Mr. Eliot wrote an account of this school; and
says of it, and of his connection with the family
of Mr. Hooker. “To this place was I called
through the infinite riches of God's mercy in
Christ Jesus to any poor soul; for here the Lord
said unto my dead soul, Live; and, through the
grace of Christ, I do live, and I shall live for-
ever. When I came to this blessed family, I
then saw, and never before, the power of godli-
ness in its lively vigor and efficacy.”
By the influence of Mr. Hooker, Mr. Eliot
was led to devote himself to the Christian minis-
try. Seeing the corruptions of the Church of
England, and the oppressive spirit of those in
authority towards all who would not conform to
the ceremonies and practices of the Established

48 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

Church, he resolved that he would go to Amer-
ica, that he might preach the gospel without
restraint.
He came to Boston in November, 1631, in
the ship “Lyon,” with Governor Winthrop's
lady and children, and sixty others. There was
then no minister at the Church in Boston, Rev.
Mr. Wilson, their pastor, having gone to Eng-
land to settle his affairs. Mr. Eliot joined the
Church at Boston, and preached to them a part
of a year, till the return of Mr. Wilson, when
the Church wished to make him colleague and
teacher with Mr. Wilson. But he had engaged
with several individuals, in England, that if they
should remove to America, he would be their
minister. They came the year after his arrival,
and settled at Roxbury; and having formed a
Church there, secured the services of Mr. Eliot.
He was then twenty-eight years old, and he
continued as Pastor of the Church in Rox-
bury nearly sixty years. His meeting-house
was on the hill where the present meeting-house
of the First Church in Roxbury (unitarian)
now stands. Cotton Mather has preserved an
anecdote connected with this hill, illustrating the
art which Mr. Eliot had at spiritualizing. Go-
ing up the hill to his meeting-house, in his old
age, with much feebleness and weariness he

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 49

said to the one who led him, “This is very like
the way to heaven, 'tis up hill; the Lord by his
grace fetch us up.” Spying a hush near him
he instantly added, “And truly there are thorns
and briars in the way too!" which instance,
Mather says, “I would not have singled out
from the many thousands of his occasional re-
flections, but on1y that I might suggest unto the
good people of Roxbury something for them to
think upon when they are going up to the house
of the Lord.”*
     In February of the year after his arrival, Mr.
Eliot is mentioned as one of the company who,
with the governor, made an excursion into the
vicinity of Boston, and discovered a pond to
which they gave its present name of “Spot
Pond.”₸ This pond has of late been a promi-
neut candidate for the privilege of supplying this
city with water.
    In 1632, Mr. Eliot was married to the pious
young lady to whom he was betrothed in Eng-
land, and who came to America by appointment
the year after Mr. Eliot’s arrival. We shall
have occasion to speak of her in the sequel of
this history.
      In the exercise of the Christian ministry, Mr.

* Mag. B III. Life of Eliot. Art. 1.
₸ Sparks’ Lib. Am. Biog. V. 9. Francis’ Life of Eliot.

VOL. III. 6

50 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

"Eliot was remarkable for a deep sense of the great
responsibleness of his work. It made him hum-
ble; he seemed to have a peculiar fear of the
temptations incident to his profession, and to be
deeply impressed with the weight of its duties.
His brethren in the ministry were struck with
this characteristic of his ministerial deportment.
He bestowed much labor and diligence upon
his preparations for the pulpit, It is said that
when he listened to n discourse which seemed
to have had care and attention bestowed upon it,
he was accustomed to express his approbation
and thanks to the preacher. But while his dis-
courses showed him to be a student, he placed a
higher value on spiritual gifts in preaching than
upon the greatest accomplishments of art or labor.
He frequently exhorted young preachers to make
Christ prominent in their discourses and in all
their ministrations.
He had an elevated sense of the meaning and
privilege of church-membership. With affection,
but also with plain and faithful words, he never
ceased to rebuke the inconsistencies of profess-
sors of religion. Mather says of him, “He
would sound the trumpet of Gou against all vice
with a most penetrating liveliness, and make his
pulpit another Mount Sinai, for the flashes of
lightning therein displayed against the breaches

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 51

of the law given from that burning mountain.
There was usually a special fervor in the rebukes
which he bestowed on carnality. When he was
to brand the earthly mindedness of Church mem-
bers and the allowance and indulgence which
they often give themselves in sensual delights,
he was a right Boanerges. He spoke as many
thunderbolts as words!”
      He paid particular attention to the young peo-
ple of his charge, gave them instruction in public
and private with the help of catechisms com-
posed by him especially for their use. It was
his familiar habit, when he visited a family, to
call the young around him and lay his hands on
their heads with words of kindness and prayer.
     He showed his love of learning in his zeal for
the establishment of common schools. The
grammar School at Roxbury owed much to his
care. At the meeting of a Synod in Boston, he
made the schools of the country a special subject
of prayer, beseeching God that he would cause
them to he established everywhere, that schools
might flourish, that every member of the Synod
might go home to procure und encourage a good
school in his town; and that before they should
die, they might be so happy as to see a good
school established in every part of the country.
      "God so blessed his endeavors that Roxbury

54 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT

their door. His wife, to try him, asked him to
whom they belonged, and though they were his
own, he did not know them.
His influence upon his brethren in the minis-
try seems to have been eminently spiritual. He
once said in a company of them, “The Lord
Jesus takes much notice of what is said and done
among his ministers when they are together.
Let us pray before we depart.” His advice to
some who complained of the conduct of Church
members towards them, was, “Bear, forbear,
forgive.” On one occasion he canto into a
meeting of ministers who had met as referees on
some difficulties between two parties. A large
bundle of papers lay on the table, containing the
correspondence and other documents relating to
the quarrel. He put them all into the fire, and
said, “You need not be astonished at what I
have done, for I did it on my knees before I
came here.”
He loved to attend upon the ministry of his
brethren when they lectured during the week.
It used to excite surprise, that, with his many
labors and studies, he could find so much time
to do this. His appearance in the house of God
as a hearer was noticeable, being always wake-
ful and watchful, turning the pages of a Bible
to find the texts referred to by the preacher, and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 55

on returning to his home, he would preach the
sermon over again to those who walked with him.
      He is mentioned as remarkable for the value
which he seemed to set on the Sabbath, and for
the high spiritual enjoyment which its return
brought with it. Of every Sabbath it might
almost be said with regard to his enjoyment of the
sacred hours, “That Sabbath was a high-day.”
      He was eminently a man of prayer, setting
apart whole days for special supplication and
communion with God, to which he frequently
added lasting. When he had any special diffi-
culty in his private, or in public affairs, he de-
voted himself to special, secret prayer for some
time together, on the principle related of another,
“That when we would have any great things to
be accomplished, the best policy is to work by
an engine which the world sees nothing of.”
When he heard any special news he would
sometimes say, “Brethren, let us turn all this
into prayer." When he paid a visit to a family
with which he was familiar, he would sometimes
say, "Come, let us not have a visit without a
prayer; let us pray down the blessing of heaven
on your family before we go.”
    A pious woman, afflicted with a wicked hus-
band, complained to him that she was greatly

56     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

troubled by the bad company which her husband
brought with him into the house, and asked him
what she should do. He said to her, “Take the
holy Bible into your hands when they come, and
you will soon drive them away.” The experi-
ment is said to have been successful.
     One day walking in his garden with a friend,
he began to pluck up the weeds. His friend
pleasantly said to him, “Sir, you tell us we
must be heavenly-minded,” as though he would
draw from Mr. Eliot some remarks on the con-
sistency of heavenly-mindedness with attention
to things about us. Mr. Eliot replied, “It is
true; and this is no impediment unto that; for
were I sure to go to heaven tomorrow, I would
do what I do to-day.”
      He went into a merchant's counting room,
where he saw his mercantile books on the table,
and some books of devotion on the shelf. Upon
which he said, “Sir, here is earth on the table,
and Heaven on the shelf. Pray don't sit so
much at the table as altogether to forget the
shelf.”
      Preaching once on holiness in all manner of
conversation, he said, “In the morning if we
ask, Where am I to be to-day? our souls must
answer, In heaven. In the evening if we ask,
Where have I been to-day, our souls may answer,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 57

In heaven. If thou art a believer thou art no
stranger to Heaven while thou livest: and when
thou diest, Heaven will be no strange place to
thee: no, thou hast been there a thousand times
before.”
     He would say to students, “I pray look to it
that you be morning birds.”
     A few years before his death, he pressed his
people to obtain another pastor, and said, “’Tis
possible you may think the burden of maintain-
ing two ministers may be two heavy for you;
but I deliver you from that fear; I do here give
back my salary to the Lord Jesus Christ, and
now, brethren, you may fix that upon any man
that God shall make a pastor for you.” But his
Church kindly and generously told him that they
should count his very presence worth a salary,
when he should be so superannuated as to do no
further service for them.
     He was an abstemious man, and yet far from
being morose or censorious, but when invited to
a large dinner, it is said that while he, eat but
very little he would indulge in pleasant and
grateful remarks with respect to the plenty with
which God had furnished his people in this
wilderness. Having been invited at a stranger’s
house to take some drink, which he was told
was wine and water, he replied, “Wine! ‘tis a

58 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

noble, generous liquor, and we should be humbly
thankful for it; but, as I remember, water was
made before it,” and water was his drink, to a
degree which was far from being common even
in those days.
He was greatly displeased with the increasing
attention in his day among the men to the wear-
ing of the hair, the length of it growing to ef-
feminacy, and false hair frequently being added,
when there was no necessity for it to cover the
head. He finally despaired of changing or
checking the custom, and said, “The lust is be-
come insuperable."
It is said of him that no man ever had fewer
enemies than he, but still there were those who
privately disliked him, and he charged his wife
in her visits among the people to do good in a
special manner to any whom she found disposed
to speak against him, or to entertain unkind
feelings towards him. Having once displeased
a hearer by something in a sermon, the man
abused him publicly by words and by printing
something to his injury. The man soon after
was wounded. Mrs. Eliot had considerable
skill in medicine and the treatment of wounds,
and Mr. Eliot sent her to cure the man, which
she did, and upon his recovery the man called
to thank her, but she tool, no reward, and Mr.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 59

Eliot kept him to dine, and took no notice of his
evil conduct, whereupon the man was deeply
affected and subdued.
     He had much tact and wit in suiting his ben-
edictions to the conditions and circumstances of
different people.
     In the days of affliction he showed exemplary
resignation to the will of God. He followed to
the grave two or three of his sons, who were
ministers of the Gospel. But his patience and
submission under these trials are spoken of with
great commendation.
      His love for the Hebrew tongue is seen in the
following enthusiastic words: “O that the Lord
would put it into the heart of some of his rel-
igious and learned servants to take such pains
about the Hebrew language as to fit it for uni-
versal use! Considering that above all lan-
guages spoken by the lip of man, it is most
capable to be enlarged, and fitted to express all
things, and motions, and notions that our human
intellect is capable of in this mortal life, consid-
ering also that it is the invention of God himself;
and what one is fitter to be the universal lan-
guage, than that which it pleased our Lord Jesus
to make use of when he spake from heaven unto
Paul!”
     In the government of his family, it is said

60 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

that there might have been seen a perpetual
mixture of a Spartan and a Christian discipline,
and that whatever decay there might have been
in family religion generally, the people ‘knew
how that he would command his children and
his household after him, that they should keep
the way of the Lord.’
He was remarkable for the efforts he em-
ployed to instruct the children, making catechisms
for them having reference to any prevailing er-
rors. The effect of this is certified in a remark
of Cotton Mather, that it is a well-principled
people that he has left behind him. “As when
certain Jesuits were sent among the Waldenses
to corrupt their children, they returned with
much disappointment and confusion, because the
children of seven years old were well-principled
enough to encounter the most learned of them
all so, if any seducers were let loose to wolve
it among the good people of Roxbury, I am con-
fident they would find as little prey in that well
instructed place as in any part of the country.
No civil penalties would signify so much to save
any people from the snares of busy heretics, as
the unwearied catechising of our Eliot has done
to preserve his people from the gangrene of ill
opinion.”*

* Book III. Art. IV.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 61

     It is said of Mr. Eliot that he was not only an
evangelical minister, but a Protestant and a Pu-
ritan. “He was a modest, humble, but very
reasonable non-conformist unto the ceremonies
which have been such unhappy apples of strife
in the Church of England; otherwise the dismal
thickets of America had never seen such a per-
son in them.”
     Mr. Eliot was strongly attached to the Con-
gregational form of Church order. He spoke of
it as the special gift of Christ to his people who
followed him into the wilderness with an earnest
zeal for communion with Him in a pure worship.
He regarded Congregationalism as a happy me-
dium to “rigid Presbyterianism” on the one
hand, and “leveling Brownism” on the other,
the liberties of the people not bring disregarded,
nor the authority of the elders rendered in-
significant, but a due balance kept between them
both. He regarded the Platform of Church Dis-
cipline “as being the nearest of what he had yet
seen to the directions of heaven.”
     By this it is not to be understood that Mr.
Eliot as a true Congregationalist, supposed that
any form of Church government was imposed
by Christ or the Apostles upon the Christian
Church, as being in any way essential to the
existence of a true Church of Christ. With re-

VOL. III. 6

62 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

gard to the appointment of any special form of
Church Government, it would seem that there is
a wise silence in the New Testament. The
genius of Christianity forbids an adherence to
any form of ecclesiastical order as essential to
the existence of a Church of Christ. This truth
was declared by Christ at Jacob's well to the
Samaritan woman. The Jews insisted on Je-
rusalem as the place where men ought to wor-
ship. The Samaritans as strenuously maintained
that acceptable worship could he performed only
in their mountain.
Christ said, The hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem
worship the Father; that is no place in prefer-
ence to another shall be essential to acceptable
worship. God is a Spirit, and they that worship
him need not restrict themselves to any hallowed
place, but may worship hint anywhere accepta-
bly, if they worship Him in spirit and in truth.
But if so great a change was allowed us the
abolition of sacred places, which once were es-
sential to acceptable worship, and notwithstund-
ing all that had been done to make men feel that
Jerusalem and the Temple were the places to
which the true worshipers must of necessity re-
sort, it follows that no forms, any more than
places, arc essential to the true worship of God.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 63

We may infer what form of Church government
prevailed under the Apostles, though different
readers of the New Testament will draw differ-
ent inferences. This shows that no form is
prescribed as being essential, otherwise we should
not have been left in the dark in so important a
subject. The body of Moses and the place of
his sepulchre were hidden, because as we gen-
erally suppose the Israelites would have paid an
idolatrous reverence before such a shrine as the
tomb of their illustrious leader, and in the Jewish
Church the solemn farce of a Holy Sepulchre
would have been enacted, in anticipation and in
countenance of the subsequent follies which have
been connected with the Sepulchre of Christ.
We may say of any supposed form of Church
government as being in any way essential, as is
said of the body of Moses, and for a similar
reason, “The Lord buried it,” and “no man
knoweth of its sepulchre lo this day.”
Our preference for the Congregational form
of Church government is not properly founded
on any prescriptions in the New Testament, but
on our convictions that this form is most accord-
ant with the genius of Christianity and of repub-
lican institutions, But so surely as we insist
on Congregationalism as having any “divine
right,” or authority, and we seek to propagate

64 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

Congregationalism with such convictions, we are
as surely High Churchmen and Puseyites as
can anywhere be found. To insist on the ab-
sence of all forms and on the perfect simplicity
of worship, with a sectarian spirit, shows as great
on attachment to a form of worship as though
we urged the adoption of all the ceremonies of
the Cathedral. We may be as bigoted in favor
of simplicity as of anything else, and a Quaker
and a Congregationalist may be as much a for-
malist and a Churchman as any other. At the
same time we may believe that the Congrega-
tional form of government is nearer to the Spirit
of the New 'Testament than any other, and this
is what Mr. Eliot probably meant when he said
that Congregationalism was nearest in his view
to the directions of heaven,
The influence which was exerted upon the
mind of Thomas Jefferson, and which he exerted
in the framing of the Constitution, by observing,
as he did, an illustration of democracy in a Con-
gregational Baptist Church in Virginia, is well
known.*
We ought to carry out the true Puritan doc-
trine of liberty of conscience by not despising
any who choose to worship under a different
form and order from our own. It is an interest-
ing illustration of the noble spirit in our Puritan

* Jefferson's “Notes on Virginia.”

80 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

It was an affecting sight, as we may suppose,
to Eliot and his friends, when they ceased from
prayer and looked upon the company of Indians
sitting in silence, with a mixture of curiosity
and seriousness and wildness in their faces. To
such un audience Eliot preached in the Indian
tongue from Ezekiel 37:9. “Prophesy, son
of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the
Lord, Come from the four winds, O breath, and
breathe upon these slain that they may live.”
It is a curious fact that the name of the man*
in whose wigwam they were assembled was
Waban, and Waban is the Indian name for the
wind, so that it seemed to Waban that the mes-
sage was sent to him, and it proved a means in
his conversion. The text from which Mr. Eliot
preached on this occasion, was not one which
his hearers could at first understand, and there-
fore some have expressed surprise at the selec-
tion of it. But in reply to this, it may be asked,
what passage of the Word of God would have
been immediately intelligible to those ignorant
hearers? Besides, the text seems to have been
chosen by Mr. Eliot for a purpose which is cer-
tainly proper on special occasions, viz., as a
warrant and encouragement to his own soul and

* He was not a Sachem, as frequently stated. See Mass. Hist.,
Col. IV., 19.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 81

that of his helpers, in preaching in that valley
of dry hones. Yet, after suitable religious im-
pressions had been made, and the hearers had
felt their lost and wretched state, and their need
of divine power, in reflecting upon the text it
must have seemed to the hearers peculiarly ap-
propriate to the occasion and to their condition.
An hour and a quarter was occupied in the
discourse. Mr. Eliot gave the Indians first a
brief exposition of the ten commandments, show-
ing the wrath and curse of God against those
who break the last one of them. The subject
was then applied, and the law having been
brought to do its work in their hearts, and their
sins being pointed out to them, as Mr. Eliot
says, with much sweet affection, Jesus Christ
was preached to them as the only Saviour. He
told them who Christ was, and what he did, and
whither he had gone, and how he will come
again to judge the wicked and burn the world.
The creation and fall of man, the greatness of
God, heaven and hell, the pleasures of religion
and the miseries of sin were then explained in
language and with illustrations suited to their
capacity.
The sermon being finished, Mr. Eliot pro-
posed some questions to them, and first inquired
whether they understood what had been said,

82 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and whether all or only some of them understood
it? A multitude of voices exclaimed that they
all understood everything which had been spo-
ken. Leave was then granted them to put
questions, and it is interesting to notice the first
questions which these children of the wilderness
proposed. The first questions were,
     “What is the cause of thunder?”
      “What makes the sea ebb and flow?”
      “What makes the wind blow?”
    But there were some questions proposed by
them which Mr. Eliot says some special wisdom
of God directed them to ask, as, for example,
       How may we come to know Jesus Christ?
    Mr. Eliot told them that if they could read
the Bible they would see clearly who Jesus
Christ is, but inasmuch as they could not then
read, he desired them to remember what he had
told them out of the Bible, and to think much
and often upon it, when they lay down on their
mats in their wigwams and when they rose up,
and to go alone in the fields, and woods, and
muse on it, and so God would teach them.
     He told them that if they would have help
from God in this thing, they must begin to pray.
and though they could not make long prayers as
the English did, yet if they did but sigh and
groan, saying, “Lord, make me to know Jesus

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 83

Christ for I know him not,” and if with all their
hearts they persisted in such prayers, they might
hope that God would help them. But they were
especially to remember that they must confess
their sins and ignorance to God and mourn over
them and acknowledge how just it would be in
God to withhold from them any knowledge of
Christ, on account of their sins.
    This instruction was communicated to them
by Mr. Eliot through the Indian interpreter
whom he had brought with him, but he says he
was struck with the fact that a few words from
the Preacher had much greater effect than many
from the interpreter.
     One of them asked, whether Englishmen were
ever at any time so ignorant of God and Jesus
Christ as they themselves?
     Another put this question: Whether if the
father he naught and the child good, will God be
offended with that child? because in the second
commandment it is said that he visits the sins
of the fathers upon the children.
     They were told in reply to this that every
child who is good will not be punished for the
sins of his father, hut if the child be bad, God
would then visit his father's sins upon him, and
they were bid to notice that part of the second
commandment which contains a promise to the

84 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

thousands of them that love God and keep his
commandments.
    One of them asked, How is all the world now
become so full of people, if they were all once
drowned in the flood? This led to the story of
the ark and the preservation of Noah.
    Mr. Eliot then proposed some questions to
them, for example, whether they did not desire
to see God, and were not tempted to think there
is no God because they could not see him?
    Some of them answered, They did desire to
see Him if it could be, but they had heard from
Mr. Eliot that he could not be seen, and they
did believe that though their eyes could not see
him, he was to be seen with their soul within.
     Mr. Eliot endeavored to confirm them in this
impression, and asked them if they saw a great
wigwam or a great house, would they think that
racoons or foxes built it? or would they think
that it made itself? or that no wise builder made
it, because they could not see him who made it?
     Knowing that the doctrine of one God was a
great stumbling block to them, Mr. Eliot asked
them if they did not think it strange that there
should be but one God, and yet this God be in
Massachusetts, and in Connecticut, in Old Eng-
land, in this wigwam, and the next, and every
where at the same time?

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 85

     One of the most sober of them replied that it
was indeed strange, as everything else they had
heard preached was strange, and they were
wonderful things which they never heard of be-
fore, but yet they thought “it might be true, and
that God was so big everywhere.” Mr. Eliot
illustrated the truth by the light of the sun,
which, though it was but a creature of God, shed
its light into that wigwam, and the next, in Mas-
sachusetts and Old England, at once.
    He inquired of them if they did not find some-
thing troubling them within after the commission
of murder, theft, adultery, lying; and what would
comfort them, and remove that trouble of con-
science when they should die und appear before
God?
    They replied that they were thus troubled,
but they could not tell what they should say
about it, or what would remove this trouble of
mind, whereupon Mr. Eliot enlarged upon the
evil of sin and the condition of the soul which is
cast out of the favor of God.
     Having spent three hours in this interview,
Mr. Eliot asked them if they were not weary,
and they said, no. But thin king it best to leave
them with an appetite, Mr. Eliot concluded
the meeting with prayer, but before he departed
the principal Indian expressed desire for more

VOL. III. 8

86 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

land to build a Town upon, and Mr. Eliot prom-
ised to speak for them to the General Court,
“that they might possess all the compass of that
hill upon which their wigwams then stood.”
     In the second visit which Mr. Eliot made to
the Indians at Nonantum, be began to catechise
the younger children. He framed three ques-
tions only, that their memories might not be
overloaded. The questions and answers were
these:
    1. Who made you and all the, world. Ans.
God.
    2. Who do you think should save you and
redeem you from sin and hell? Ans. Jesus
Christ.
    3. How many commandments hath God giv-
en you to keep. Ans. Ten.
    By the time that the questions reached the
smaller children, they had learned the answers
perfectly, from hearing the others repeat them,
and the parents had become familiar with them,
and they were requested to use this Shorter
Catechism of three questions, in teaching their
children, against the next visit.
     The substance of Mr. Eliot's address to the
Indians on this occasion was this: “We are
come to bring you good news from the great
God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth, and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 87

to tell you how evil and wicked men may come
to be good, so that while they live they may be
happy, and when they die may go to God and
live in heaven.”
     He then endeavored to give them just impres-
sions concerning God, his power, greatness, and
goodness, his will, what he required of all men,
even of the Indians, in the ten commandments,
the dreadful punishment of all who break one of
these commandments, the anger of God at sin,
and yet his compassion for sinners in sending
Christ to die for wicked men. He taught them
that if they would repent and believe, God would
love the poor miserable Indians, but that the
wrath of God would burn against all who neg-
lected so great salvation as was now offered to
them by those whose only desire was their sal-
vation.
    The power of these words was manifestly felt
by one of the Indians, who at the thought of his
sins and of the danger to which they exposed
him, wept aloud, yet without affectation, but
striving to conceal his emotions.
     Perhaps in no way can we communicate re-
ligious instruction in a more simple and effectual
way to the young who may read this book, than
to record here the questions and answers which
Mr. Eliot has preserved in his several inter-

88 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

views with the Indians. Other writers who
lived at that time have also recorded questions
and answers which they heard. But it will not
be necessary to state the times, or places, or the
hand by which they were recorded.
     An old man rose up after Mr. Eliot had fin-
ished, his sermon, and asked whether it was not
too late for such an old man as he, who was
near death, to repent or seek after God.
     This question affected Mr. Eliot and his com-
panions with compassion. They told him what
is said in the Bible about those who were hired
at the eleventh hour, and drew a parallel to
his case by describing a son who had for very
many years been disobedient, and afterwards
penitent, and the feelings of his father towards
him.
     Question. How came the English to differ
so much from the Indians in the knowledge of
God and Jesus Christ, seeing they all had at
first one father?
     Question. How may we come to serve God?
     Question. How comes it to pass thot the sea
water is salt and the land water fresh?
     Answer. This is one of the wonderful works
of God. As strawberries are sweet and cran-
berries sour, by the appointment of God, so was
it in this case. To this was added some ac-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 89

count of natural causes and effects in connection
with this subject, which they less understood,
yet did understand somewhat, as appeared by
their usual signs of approving what they under-
stand.”
     Question. If the water is higher than the
earth, how comes it to pass that it doth not over-
flow all the earth?
     The missionary took an apple and illustrated
the shape of the earth, the motion on its axis,
and round the sun; then showed them how God
made a great hollow ditch for the waters, which
was so deep as to hold the waters by the attract-
tion of gravitation, so that notwithstanding their
convexity, they could not overflow the earth.
     During a recess in this interview, the Indians
were busily employed in discussing these several
subjects among themselves, their minds being
evidently excited by them, through the effect of
new ideas upon subjects which were new or had
always been incomprehensible to them. Being
afterwards asked if they wished to propose any
further questions, one asked.
    If a man has committed some great sins, (sto-
len goods, &c.,) and the Sachem does not punish
him, and he is not punished, but he restores the
goods, what then? is not all well now? meaning

90 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

to ask whether restoration made sufficient amends
to the law or God.
      He was, told that though men be not offended
at such sins, yet God is angry. The holiness of
God was here illustrated. Such a sinner should
seek forgiveness as much as any other sinner
through the blood of Christ.
    Upon hearing this answer, the Indian who
proposed the question drew back and hung down
his head, with an appearance of great sorrow
and confusion, and finally broke out saying,
“Me little know Jesus Christ, or me should seek
him better.” Mr. Eliot comforted him by tell-
ing him that as it is early dawn at first when
there is but little light, but the sun rises to per-
fect day, so it would be with him and his people
with regard to a knowledge of the favor of God
if they would seek Him.
     One of the Indians who had received religious
impressions in his acquaintance with the colo-
nists, said he would propose this question. A
little while since he said he was praying in his
wigwam to God and Jesus Christ, that God
would give him n good heart; that in his prayer
another Indian interrupted him and, told him
that he prayed in vain, because that Jesus Christ
could not understand what Indians speak in
prayer; he had been used to hear Englishmen

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 91

pray, and so could well enough understand them,
but Indian language in prayer he was not ac-
quainted with. His question therefore was,
“Weather God and Jesus Christ did understand
Indian prayers?”
    At the close of one interview, Mr. Eliot prayed
for above fifteen minutes in the Indian tongue,
that they might feel that Christ understood such
prayers. The Indians stood about him in gro-
tesque figures, some of them lifting up their eyes
and their hands to accompany the prayer, and
one of them holding a rag to his eyes and weep-
ing violently, and after prayer retiring to a cor-
ner of the wigwam to weep in secret; which
one or Mr. Eliot's companions observed and
spoke with him, and found him to be deeply
affected with n sense of his guilt.
     Mr. Eliot makes several useful observations
in view of his first two visits to the Indians.
   1. None of them slept in sermon or derided God's messenger.
   2. That there is need of learning in minis-
ters who preach to Indians more than to gracious
Christians, in order to answer their philosophical
questions.
    3. That there is no need of miraculous or
extraordinary gifts in seeking the conversion of
the most depraved of the human family.

92 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

    4. If Englishmen despise the preaching of
faith and repentance and humiliation for sin, the
poor heathens-will be glad of it, and it shall do
good to them.
     He adds to this, The Lord grant that the
foundation of our English woe be not laid in the
ruin and contempt or those fundamental doc-
trines of faith, repentance, humiliation for sin,
but rather relishing the novelties and dreams of
such men as are surfeited with the ordinary
food of the Gospel of Christ. Indians shall
weep to have faith and repentance preached,
when Englishmen shall mourn, too late, that are
weary of such truths.
     5. That the deepest estrangement of man
from God is no hindrance to his grace, nor to
the Spirit of grace. What nation or people
ever so deeply degenerated since Adam’s fall,
as these Indians, and yet the Spirit of God is
working upon them.
    “It is very likely if ever the Lord convert any
of these natives, they will mourn for sin exceed-
ingly, and consequently love Christ dearly; for
if by a little measure of light such heart-break-
ings have appeared, what may we think will be
when more is let in?”
    “They are some of them very wicked, some
very ingenious. These latter are very apt and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 93

quick of understanding, and naturally sad and
melancholy, (a good servant to repentance) and
therefore there is the greater hope of heart-
breakings if ever God brings them effectually
home, for which we should affectionately pray.”
Mr. Eliot says, '' It is wonderful to see what
a little leaven and that small mustard-seed of
the Gospel will do, and how truth will work
when the spirit of Christ hath the setting of it
on, even upon hearts and spirits most incapable.”
The night after the Indians had heard the Gos-
pel preached for the third time, an English
youth lodged in Waban's tent. He said that
Waban instructed his companions with regard
to the things which they had heard that day,
and prayed with them, and that he awoke sev-
eral times that night and began to pray and
speak to one and another of the Indians of the
things which they had heard. Mr. E. says,
This man, being a man of gravity and chief
prudence, a counsel among them, although no
Sachem, is like to be n means of great good to the
rest of his company, unless cowardice or witch-
ery put an end, as usually they have done, to
such hopeful beginnings.
Two young Indians being at an Elder's house
one Sabbath evening, having been previously
affected under Mr. Eliot's preaching, one of

94       LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

them began to confess to the elder how wicked
he had been, and declared that God could never
look upon him with love. The elder opened to
him in a familiar manner the truth of God's
love to the guilty, his willingness to pardon the
vilest through the redemption made by Christ, and
illustrated his instructions by the discourse of
Christ to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well,
and how Christ forgave her though she was liv-
ing in sin at the moment when he began to
speak to her. Whereupon the young man be-
gan to weep bitterly, and the other youth, his
companion, disclosing his own guilt, burst out
into loud weeping in which they both continued
for half an hour.
     An old man told Mr. Eliot at one of the meet-
ings that he was fully purposed to keep the
Sabbath, but still he was in fear whether he
should go to heaven or hell. This was a case
in which reliance on good works gave as usual
no peace to the conscience. It led Mr. Eliot to
speak fully of the way of justification by Christ
without works, “as the remedy against all fears
of hell.”
     Mr. Eliot was interested in the fact that some
of the Indians who seemed to receive the Gos-
pel most readily, and feel its power, were able
to use “gracious expressions,” as he calls them,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 96

which he was confident they had not heard
from him, nor from his assistants. He gives a
specimen of them with the corresponding Indian
words:

Amanaomen Jehovah tahassen metagh.
Take away, Lord, my stony heart.

Checheson Jehovah kekowhogkow.
Wash, Lord, my soul.

“What are these,” he says, “but the sprinklings
of the spirit bod blood of Christ Jesus on their
hearts? and 'tis no small matter that such dry,
barren, and long accursed ground should yield
such kind of increase in so small a time. I
would not readily commend a fair day before
night, nor promise much of such kind of begin-
nings, in all persons, nor yet in all of these, for
we know how the profession of many is but a
mere paint, and their best graces nothing but
mere flashes and pangs which are suddenly kin-
died, and as soon to go out, and are extinct
again; yet God doth not usually send his
plough and seeds-men to a place but there is at
least some little piece of good ground, although
three to one be naught; and methinks the Lord
Jesus would never have made so fit a key

96 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

for their locks unless he had intended to open
some of their doors, and so to make way for his
coming in.”
    At the fourth meeting with the Indians, the
children having been catechised, and the vision
of the dry bones, which seems to have impressed
Mr. Eliot from the first in speaking to the
Indians, being explained, they offered all their
children to the k English to be educated by
them.
    At this time one of them being asked, What
is sin? he answered, A naughty heart. He did
not seem to feel that sin consists only in out-
ward acts.
    One of them complained that some of the
Indians reviled him and the more serious Indians,
calling them rogues, and otherwise insulting
them for cutting off their long locks and arrang-
ing their hair in a modest manner, for, Mr.
Eliot says, “since the word hath begun to work
upon their hearts they have discerned the vanity
and pride which they placed in their hair, and
have therefore, of their own accord (none speak-
ing to them that we know of) cut it modestly.”
They said that some Indians who had heard the
news of the great attention to religion among
them, would come from a distance and stay
with them three or four days, and one Sabbath,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 97

and then they would go from them, (implying
that they did not like the Sabbath), but as for
themselves, they said they were fully purposed
to keep the Sabbath.
     Some of the Indians who heard the Gospel,
despised and rejected it. So it has always been
and is now, wherever the Gospel is preached.
Some have their hearts opened to attend to the
things of their pence, and others are hardened.
Mr. Eliot's assistant, learning that some Indians
had discouraged and threatened others with re-
gard to their attendance on the preaching, spoke
to them on one occasion about the temptations of
Satan. After sermon they proposed these ques-
tions:
     1. Some Indians say we must pray to the
devil for all good, and some to God; may we
pray to the devil or no?
     2. What does humiliation mean, which we
hear used so often by the English?
     3. Why do the English call us Indians, for
before they came here we had another name?
     4. What is a spirit?
     5. May we believe in dreams?
     6. How did the English come to know God
so much, and we so little?
     At the close of this interview they said that

VOL. III. 9

98 LIF OF JOHN ELIOT.

their great desire was to have a town and to
learn to spin.
They believed in the existence of an evil
spirit, whom they called CHEPIAN, and who they
thought corresponded to the devil in Scripture.
They gave the following account of their way
in which conjurers or Powows were made:
Whenever an Indian had a strange dream in
which Chepian appeared to him as a serpent,
he would make it known to the rest, and for two
days the Indians would dance and rejoice for
What the serpent had told him, and he then be-
came a Powow, or one whom the devil favored
with his communications. The reader will no-
tice the identity of the form in which they made
the devil to appear to them, with the form in
which he appeared to our first parents.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 99

CHAPTER V.

Nonantum granted to the Indians by the General Court. First Indian
Laws. Eliot's and Shepard's account of the progress of the Gospel
among the Indians. Concord Indians. Their laws. Nonantum.
Questions and anecdotes. Cape Cod Indians. The Synod at
Cambridge, 1649, examine the Christian Indians. “Who made
Sack? Anecdotes and Questions. Order of the General Court,
1647. Regard for the Sabbath. Power of conscience. Questions.
Burial of a child. Settlement or Natick. Questions.

THE Indians were desirous of obtaining a
grant of land for a permanent settlement, that
they might enter upon civilized life. They had
bartered their principal places to the English.
The General Court purchased of some of the
planters, who had bought it of the Indians, the
place where their meeting was held, and gave it
to them. The Indians inquiring what the name
of the place should be they were told it should
be Noonatomen (afterwards Nonantum) which
signifies rejoicing, "because they did rejoice at
the word of God, and God did rejoice over them
us penitent sinners.”
The following is a specimen of their first
laws:

100 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

    1. If any man be idle a week, or at most a
fortnight, he shall pay five shillings.
    3. If any man shall beat his wife, his hands
shall be tied behind him, and he shall be car-
ried to the place of justice to be severely pun-
ished.
    4. Every young man, if not another's servant,
and if unmarried, shall be compelled to set up a
wigwam, and plant for himself, and not live
shifting up and down to other wigwams.
    5. If any woman shall not have her hair
tied up, but hang loose or be cut as men's hair,
she shall pay five shillings.
    7. All those men that wear long locks, shall
pay five shillings.
    Most of the facts above narrated are contained
in a piece written by Mr. Eliot, entitled The
Day Breaking if not the Sun Rising of the Gos-
pel with the Indians in New England. It was
printed in London, “by Richard Cotes, for
Fulk Clifton, and are to be sold at his shop
under Saint Margaret's Church, on New-fish
Street Hill, 1647.”
    The same printer in 1648, issued another
piece, written by Mr. Thomas Shepard, minis-
ter of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, at Cambridge,
in New England, called, “The Clear sun-shine
of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians

LIFE JOHN ELIOT. 101

of New England; or, An Historical Narrative
of God's Wonderful Workings upon sundry of
the Indians, both Chief Governors and common
people, in bringing them to a willing and de-
sired submission to the Ordinances of the Gos-
pel; and framing their hearts to an earnest
inquiry after the knowledge of God the father
and of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world.”
This piece was dedicated by Stephen Marshall;
Jeremy Whitaker, Edmund Calamy and nine
others, in England, “to the Right Honorable
the Lords and Commons assembled in High
Court of Parliament, That in you the Represent-
atives of this nation, England might be stirred
up to be Rejoycers in and advancers of these
promising beginnings.” They looked upon the
success of the Gospel among the Indians as a
fulfillment in part of the promise of God the
Father to the Son, “Ask of me, and I will give
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
Psalm 2. They remind the Parliament that
“God makes man's will of sin serviceable to the
advancement of the riches of his own grace.
The most horrid act that was ever done by the
sonnes of men, the murther of Christ, God made
serviceable to the highest purposes of Grace and
mercy that ever came upon his breast. Hee

102 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

suffered Paul to be cast into prison to convert
the Jaylor, to be shipwrackt at Milita to preach
to the barbarous. So he suffered their (the
Pilgrims') way to be stopp'd up here, (in Eng-
land) and their persons to be banished hence,
that hee might open a passage for them in the
wilderness, and make them instruments to draw
soules to him, who had been so long estranged
from Him. The end of the adversary was to
suppresse, but God's to propagate, the Gospel,
as one saith of Paul, his blindness gave light to
whole world. ‘Coecitas Pauli totius orbis illumi-
natio.’ Acts 9:9. It was a long time before
God let them (the Pilgrims) see any further end
of their coming over than to preserve their con-
sciences, cherish their Graces, provide for their
sustenance. But hee let them know it was for
some farther arrand that he brought them here,
giving them some Bunches of Grapes, some clus-
ters of Figs in earnest of the prosperous successe
of their endeavours upon these poor out casts.
If the first fruits bee specimens, what will the
whole harvest bee? When the East and West
shal sing together the song of the Lamb.”
Mr. Shepard says that the news of what had
been done for the Indians at Nonantum, by the
preaching of the Gospel, had reached the Con-
cord Indians, and their Sachem was so much

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 103

affected by it, that he made application to have
the Gospel and its ordinances made known to
them. “They craved the assistance of one of the
chiefe Indians of Noonanetum (Nonantum,)
a very active Indian, to bring in others to the
knowledge of God.”
Mr. Eliot had already expressed his views*
on the subject of a native ministry in these
words,-- “Nor doe I expect any great good will
bee wrought by the English, (leaving secrets to
God,--although the English surely begin and
lay the first stones of Christ's Kingdom and
Temple amongst them) because God is wont or-
dinarily to convert Nations and peoples by some
of their owne country men who are nearest to
them, and can best speake, and most of all pity
their brethren and countrimen.”
A native ministry among the Indians began,
in an informal way, much earlier than we have
seen it begin among other heathen nations.
The North American Indians, though sunk in
superstition and wickedness, retained much
more of intellectual strength, were more shrewd,
and sooner became fit to teach their country-
men than has been the case elsewhere in the

* The Day Breaking &c., p. 15.

104   LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

history of modern missions. No doubt the cli-
mate had much to do with the vigor of mind
which the Indians have exhibited. They were
far removed from the effeminateness of Eastern
nations, and though indolent in their dispose-
tions and habits, their minds when roused by the
truth of the Gospel, rose to greater intellectual
efforts than have been commonly seen in tribes
exposed to the enervating influences of warmer
latitudes.
    Some quotations from· the introduction by
Calamy and others, to Mr. Shepard's piece above
referred to, will show the spirit of those good
men, as well as confirm the fact that the Gospel
had done wonders in a short time among the
Indians. It was published in 1646, two years
after Mr. Eliot and begun his labors with them.
     They tell the readers of the effects which the
Gospel had wrought among the Indians. “They
set up prayers in their families morning and
evening, and are in earnest in them. And with
more affection they crave God's blessing upon a
little parched corn, and Indian stalks than many
of us do upon our greatest plenty, and abund-
ance. God is making good that promise,
Zeph. 2: 11. I will famish all the gods of the
earth, (which he doth by withdrawing the wor-
shipers, and throwing contempt upon the wor-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 105

ship.) and men shall worship me alone, every
one from his place, even all the isles of the heathens.”
They call upon the people of England to read
and ponder this remarkable narrative of the
work of grace among the North American
Savages. “Let these poor Indians stand up
incentives to us, as the Apostle set up the Gen-
tiles a provocation to the Jews; who knows but
God gave life to New England to quicken Old,
and hath warmed them that they might heat us;
raised them from the dead, that they might
recover us from that consumption, and those sad
decays which are come upon us.”
“This small Treatise is an Essay to that end,
an Indian Sermon; though you will not hear us,
possibly when some rise from the dead you will
hear them. The main Doctrine it preacheth
unto all is to value the Gospel, prize the min-
istry, loath not your manna, surfeit not of your
plenty, be thankful for mercies, fruitful under
means: Awake from your slumber, repair your
decays, redeem your time, improve the seasons
of your peace, answer to cals, open to knocks,
attend to whispers, obey commands; you have
a name you live, take heed you be not dead,
you are Christians in shew, be so in deed: least

106 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

as you have lost the power of religion, God take
away from you the form also.”
“And you that are ministers learn by this not
to despond, though you sec not present fruit of
your labors; though you fish all night and catch
nothing. God hath a fulness of time to perform
all his purposes. And the deepest degeneracies
and the widest estrangements from God shall be
no bar or obstacle to the power and freeness of
his own grace when that time is come.”
“And you that are merchants, take incour-
agement from hence to scatter beams of light, to
spread and propagate the Gospel into those dark
corners of the earth; whither you traffick you
take much from them; if you can carry this to
them, you will make them an abundant recom-
pense. And you that are Christians indeed,
rejoice to see the Curtains of the Tabernacle
inlarged, the bounds of the Sanctuary extended,
Christ advanced, the Gospel propagated, and
souls saved. And if ever the love of God did
centre in your hearts, if ever the sense of his
goodness hath begot bowels of compassion in
you, draw them forth towards them whom God
hath singled out to be the objects of his grace
and mercy; lay out your prayers, lend your
assistance to carry on this day of the Lord begun
among them. The Parents also and many

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 107

others being convinced of the evil of an idle life,
desire to be employed in honest labor, but they
want instruments and tools to set them on work,
and cast garments to throw upon those bodies
that their loins may bless you whose souls
Christ hath cloathed. Some worthy persons
have given much; and if God shall move the
heart of others to offer willingly towards the
building of Christ a Spiritual temple, it will
certainly remain upon their account when the
smallest rewards from God shall be better than
the greatest layings out for God.”
It will be perceived that this is an appeal in
behalf of foreign missions. We will consider
some of the facts which Mr. Shepard relates,
and to which this appeal is an introduction.
“The awakening of the Indians in our Towne,”
says Mr. Shepard, “raised a great noyse among
all the rest round about us, especially about
Concord side, where the Sachim and one or two
more of his men hearing of these things, and of
the preaching of the Word, and how it wrought
among them bore, came therefore hither to
Noonanetum, (Nonantum.) to the Indian Lecture,
and what the Lord spake to his heart wee know
not, only it seems he was. so farre affected as
that he desired to become more like to the Eng-
lish, and to cast off those Indian wild and sinfull

108 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

courses they formerly lived in; but when divers
of his₁₁men perceived their Sachim's mind, they
secretely opposed him herein, which opposition
being known, he therefore called together his
chief men about him, and made a speech to this
effect unto them, viz.: That they had no reason
at all to oppose those courses the English were
now taking for their good, for saith hee, all the
time you have lived after the Indian fashion,
under the power and protection of higher Indian
Sachims, what did they care for you? They
onely sought their owne ends out of you, and
therefore would exact upon you and take away
your skins, and your kettles, and your wampum
from you at their own pleasure, and this was all
that they regarded: but you may evidently see
that the English mind no such things, care for
none of your goods, but onely seek your good
and welfare, and instead of taking away all,
are ready to give to you.”
The effect of this speech seems to have been
happy. The Indians sought the assistance of a
discreet and active Indian at Nonantum, “in
making certain lawes for their more religious
and civill government, and behaviour.” It will
interest the reader to observe the fruit of this
half civilized legislator's advice and labors. Mr.
Shepard gives us the “Conclusions and Orders

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 109

made and agreed upon by divers Sachims and
other principall men amongst the Indians at
Concord, in the end of the eleventh moneth,
An. 1646.”* The following are a good speci-
men of the whole:
     1. Every one that shall abuse themselves
with ruin or strong liquors, shall pay for every
time so abusing themselves twenty shillings.
     2. There shall be no more Powwowing
amongst the Indians. And if any shall here
after Powwow, both he that shall Powwow, and
he that shall cause him to Powwow shall pay
twenty shillings apiece.
     3. They do desire that they may be stirred
up to seek after God.
     4. They desire they may understand the
wiles of Satan, and grow out of love with his
suggestions and temptations.
     5. That they may fall upon some better
course to improve their time than formerly.
     6. That they may he brought to the sight of
the sin of lying, und whosoever shall be found
guilty herein, shall pay for the first offence five
shillings, the second ten shillings, the third
twenty shillings.

* Shepard's Clear Sunshine, p. 39. Hist. Coll. Vol, IV. 3d
series. Shattuck's Hist. Concord.

VOL. III. 10

110      LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

      7. Whosoever shall steale anything from
another, shall restore fourfold.
      8. They desire that no Indian hereafter shall
have any more but one wife.
      9. They desire to prevent the falling out of
Indians, one with another, and that they may
live quietly one by another.
     10. That they may follow after humility,
and not be proud.
     11. That when Indians doe wrong, they
may be liable to censure by fine or the like, as
the English are.
     12. That they pay their debts to the English.
     13. That they doe observe the Lord's day,
and whosoever shall prophane it, shall pay
twenty shillings.
     14. This order refers to the disgusting prac-
tice of eating vermin gathered from their per-
sons; “and whosoever shall offend in this case
shall pay for every louse a penny.”
     15. They will weare their haire comely as
the English-do, penalty five shillings.
     16. They intend to reforme themselves in
their former greasing themselves, penalty five
shillings.
     17. They do all resolve to set up prayer in

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 111

their wigwams, and to seek God both before
and after meate.
    20. Whosoever shall play at. their former
games shall pay ten shillings.
    22. Wilful murder shall be punished by
death.
    23. They shall not disguise themselves in
their mournings, as formerly; nor shall they
keep a great noyse by howling.
    25. No Indian shall take an Englishman's
canooe without leave, penalty five shillings.
    26. No Indian shall come into any English-
man's house, except he first knock; and this
they expect from the English.
    27. Whosoever bents his wife, shall pay
twenty shillings.
    28. If any Indian shall fall out with and
beate another Indian, he shall pay twenty shil-
lings.
    29. They desire they may be a towne, and
either to dwell on this side the Beare swamp, or
at the East side of Mr. Flint's Pond.
    These orders were put into form by Captain
Simon Willard, of Concord, whom the Indians
chose to be their Recorder. They were very
solicitous that what they agreed upon might be
faithfully preserved without alteration. The

112    LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

narrative of these conclusions and orders is
signed by Thomas Flint, and Simon Willard.*
    Mr. Shepard says that on the 3d March,
1647, he and the Rev. Messrs. Wilson of Bos-
ton, Allen, of Dedham, and President Dunster,
and many Christian friends, attended the Indian
Lecture at Nonantum. “On which day,” he
says, “perceiving divers of the Indian women
well affected, and considering that their soules
might stand in need of answer to their scruples
as well as the mens, and yet because we knew
how unfit it was for women so much as to ask
questions publicly immediately by themselves,
wee did therefore desire them to propound any
questions they would be resolved about by
first acquainting either their Husbands or the
Interpreter privately therewith; whereupon we
heard two questions orderly propounded; which
because they are the first ever propounded by
Indian women in such an ordinance that ever
wee heard of, and because they may bee other-
wise useful, I shall therefore set them down.”
     The first question was proposed by the wife
of one Wampooas, a serious Indian, and was to
this effect:
     “Do I pray when my husband prays, if I

* Shepard's Clear Sunshine, &c., p. 41.

   LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.   113

speak nothing as he doth, yet if I like what
he says, and my heart goes with it?”
     The second was by the wife of one Tothers-
wampe, viz., “Whether a husband should do
well to pray with his wife, and yet continue in
his passions and be angry with his wife?”
     Mr. Shepard says, he had “heard few
Christians when they begin to look towards
God, make more searching questions than these
Indians.”
    An old Indian had an unruly, disobedient
son. He asked, “What should one do with
him, in case of obstinacy and disobedience, and
that will not hear God's word, though his father
command him, nor will not forsake his drunken-
ness, though his father forbid him.”
    Rev. Mr. Wilson was much moved at this
question, “and spake so terribly yet so gra-
ciously as might have affected a heart not quite
shut up, which this young desperado hearing,
(who well understood the English tongue,) in-
stead of humbling himself before the Lord's
Word, which touched his conscience and con-
dition so neare, hee was filled with the Spirit of
Satan, and as soone us ever Mr. Wilson’s
speech was ended; he brake out into a loud con-
temptuous expression. “So!” saith he; which
we passed by without speaking againe, leaving

10*

114    LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

the Word with him, which wee knew would
one day take its effect one way or other upon
him.”
    In 1647, Messrs. Eliot, Wilson and Shepard,
were sent for to Yarmouth, to arbitrate in some
difficulties, by means of which “not only that
bruised Church, but the whole Towne” was
restored to peace. “But Mr. Eliot, as Hee takes
all other advantages of time, so hee took this, of
speaking with, and preaching to the poore In-
dians in these remote places about Cape Cod.”
    The Indian dialect varied in forty or sixty
miles, and on this account, and because the In-
dians at Cape Cod “were not accustomed to
sacred language, about the holy things of God,
wherein Mr. Eliot excels any other of the En-
glish, who in the Indian language about com-
mon matters excell him," it was difficult to make
them understand, yet by the help of one or two
interpreters, they succeeded.
    There was a Sachem among them of a very
furious spirit, whom the English for that reason
called Jehu. He promised to attend the preach-
ing on the day appointed, and to bring his men
with him, but that very morning he sent his men
to sea for fish, and although he came late to
hear the Sermon, his men were absent. Yet he
feigned that he did not understand what was

LIPE OF JOHN ELIOT. 115

said, though the others said that he did under-
stand, and Mr. Eliot by privately questioning
him found out that he did. He heard, however,
“with a dogged look, and a discontented coun-
tenance.” How curious the uniform resemblance
of the human heart in different classes of hear-
ers in every age and place, under the preaching
of the Gospel. Who in preaching has not seen
a face answering to this Jehu's face, and the
heart of man to that of this man?
It was found on this visit to the Indians of
Cape Cod, that there was some tradition among
them of the Gospel having been preached in
those parts before. An aged Indian told the
ministers that the very things which Mr. Eliot
had taught them as the Commandments of God,
and concerning God, and the making of the
world by one God, they had heard from some
old men now dead. A French ship was wrecked
upon that coast many years before, and among
the passengers and crew was the Frenchman
who, the Indian tradition said,* while the
Indians were putting him to death, told them
that God was angry with them for their sins.
Mr. Shepard speaks of “the French preacher
cast upon those coasts many years since.” This
man may have been a French Catholic Priest,

116    LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

on his way to the French possessions in
Canada.*
    The presence of this preacher among them
will account for a dream which one of the In-
dians related to Mr. Shepard and his com-
panions, as having occurred to him some time
ago. The tradition of what the preacher had
said, and the account of his appearance was
strongly impressed upon his imagination.₸ as we
may suppose, without resorting to any other
explanation of the dream which nevertheless is
curious and interesting.
    He said that two years before the arrival of
the English, there was a great mortality in that
region, and one night when he was much dis-
turbed and broken of his rest, he dreamed that
he saw many men arrive upon the coast, dressed
in such clothes as the English wear. Among
them there was a man wholly in black, with a
thing in his hand which he now saw was an
Englishman's book; that the man in black stood
on a place higher than the rest, with the English
around him, before a great number of the In-
dians. This man told the Indians that God was
moosquantum, or angry with them, and would

* See Bancroft’s History of the United States, Vol. I.
₸ See Sir Walter Scott's “Demonology and Witchcraft, “Let
ter II.

    LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.     117

kill them for their sins. He said, that he him-
self then stood up, and asked the man in black
what God would do with him and his Squaw
and Papooses. The man would not answer him
the first nor the second time, but the third time
he proposed the question, the man smiled upon
him, and told him that he and his papooses
would be safe, and that God would give them
victuals and other good things.
     Strange as it may seem, this dreamer who
seemed thus to have had his dream fulfilled,
would not come to the sermon till it was nearly
finished, and then finding that the man in
black was yet speaking, “away he flung,” and
was seen no more by the ministers till the next
day. Whether Satan, or fear, or guilt, or the
world prevailed, Mr. Shepard says he could not
say.
     The next year this writer says, he was much
surprised in unending an Indian Lecture at
Nonantum, to see so many Indian men, women,
and children, in English apparel, so that they
were scarcely known from the English people.
Partly by gifts, and partly by their own labors,
some of them had obtained means by which
they were even handsomely dressed.
     June 9, 1648, was the first day of the Synod's
meeting at Cambridge. The forenoon was spent

118 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

in hearing a sermon preparatory to the work of
the Synod, and the afternoon was occupied in
hearing on Indian Lecture. “There was a great
gathering of Indians from all parts to hear Mr.
Eliot, which we conceived not unseasonable at
such a time; part1y that the reports or God's
worke begun among them might be seen and
believed of the chief who were then sent, and
met from all the churches of Christ in this coun-
try, who could hardly believe the reports they
had beard concerning these new stirs among the
Indians, and partly hereby to raise up a greater
spirit of prayer, for the carrying on the work
begun upon the Indians among all the churches
and servants of the Lord Jesus. The sermon
was spent in showing them their miserable con-
dition without Christ; out of Ephes. 2:1, that
they were dead in trespasses and sinnes, and in
pointing unto them the Lord Jesus who onely
could quicken them.”
     After sermon, opportunity was given for the
Indians to ask questions. Some of them were these:
     What countryman was Christ, and where was
he born?
     How far off is that place from us here?
     Where is Christ now?

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 119

How may we lay hold on Christ, and where,
he being now absent from us?
Mr. Shepard continues, “But that which I note
is this, that their gracious attention to the Word,
the affections and mournings of some of them
under it, their sober propounding of divers and
spirituall questions, their aptnesse to beleeve
and understand what was replyed to them; the
readiness of divers poore naked children to an-
swer openly the chief questions in the Cate-
chism, which were formerly taught them, and
such like appearances of a great change upon
them did marvellously affect all the wise and
godly ministers, magistrates and people, and did
raise their hearts up to great thankfulnesse to
God; very many deeply and abundantly mourn-
ing for joy to see such a blessed day, and the
Lord Jesus so much known and spoken of
among such as never heard of him before: So
that if any in England doubt of the truth of
what was formerly writ; or if any malignant
eye shall question and vilifie this work, they
will now speak too late, for what was here done
at Cambridge, was not set under a Bushell, but
in the open Sunne; and what Thomas would
not beleeve by the reports of others, he might be
forced to beleeve by seeing with his own eyes.

120    LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and feeling Christ Jesus thus risen among them
with his own hands.”*
     An old Indian came to Mr. Eliot's house, as
Mr. Eliot told Mr. Shepard, and Mr. Eliot told
him that because he brought his wife and chil-
dren to meeting so constantly, he would give
him some clothes, for it was cold weather, and
the old man was quite destitute. He did not
understand this term which Mr. Eliot used for
clothes, and enquired of Mr. Eliot's Indian do-
mestic, and when he understood that it was
clothing which was promised, he broke out with
much feeling, saying, “God is merciful:”—a
blessed, because a plainhearted, affectionate
speech,” says Mr. Shepard, “and worthy of Eng-
lishmen's thoughts when they put on their
clothes; to think that a poor blind Indian that
scarce ever heard of God before, that hee should
see not only God in his clothes, but mercy also
in a promise of a cast off worne sute of clothes,
which were then given him, and which he now
daily wears.”
      Mr. S. says that “Mr. Edward Jackson one of
our Towne, constantly attended Mr. Eliot's
Lectures, and took down the questions and an-
swers, and having sent me his notes, I shall
send you a taste of some of them,” viz.;

   * “Cleare Sunshine of the Gospel,” p. 46.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 121

     1. Why are some 80 bad that they hate those
men that would teach them good things?
     2. Was the devil or man made first?
     3. If a father prays to God to teach his sons
to know him, and he doth teach them himself,
and they will not learn to know God, what
should such fathers do? This question was put
by an old man that had rude children.
     4. A Squaw asked this question: Whether
she might not go and pray in some private
place in the woods, when her husband was not
at home, because she was ashamed to pray in
the wigwam before company?
     5. How may one know wicked men, who are
good, and who are bad?
     6. To what nation did Jesus Christ come
first unto, and when?
     The following question illustrates the old say-
ing, that a child or fool may ask a question
which a philosopher cannot answer. It relates
to the solemn and fearful subject of the dissolu-
tion of the body and soul. Who has not, at least
in his earlier years, puzzled himself with ques-
tions about the passage of a departing spirit
from the chamber of death? The question re-
ferred to was this:
     7. If a man should be incloscd in iron a foot
thick, and thrown into the fire, what would be-

VOL. III. 11

122 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

come of the soul? Could the soul come out
thence or not?
    8. Why did not God give all men good
hearts, that they might be good?
    9. If one should be among strange Indians
that know not God, and they should make him
to fight against some whom he ought not to
fight against, and he should refuse, and for his
refusal they should kill him, what would become
of his soul in such a case? This question was
asked by a “stout fellow,” whose mind was
interested in religion, and was connected with
the notion of the Indians that all their valiant
men have a reward after death. He seemed to
think that his refusal to fight in the case sup-
posed, might prejudice his chance of reward
hereafter.
    10. How long is it before men believe who
have the word of God made known unto them?
    11. How may we know when our faith is
good, and our prayers good prayers?
    12. Why did not God kill the devil, that made
all men so bad, God having all power?
    13. If we be made weak by sin in our hearts,
how can we come before God to sanctify the
Sabbath?
    An amusing incident took place at one of the
public meetings. A drunken Indian cried out,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 123

“Mr. Eliot, who made sack? Who made
sack?” This, it will be perceived, was a cavil
about the “origin of evil.” It is said that “he
was soon snib'd by the other Indians, who cried
out that it was a papoose question. Mr. Eliot
seriously answered him; which hath cooled
his boldness ever since.”
The man who took down these questions says
that “he had some occasion to speak to Waban,
(one of the chief men at Nonantum,) about the
time of sun-rising, and staying about half an
hour, as he came back by one of the wigwams,
the man of that wigwam was at prayer, at which
he was so much affected that he stopped under
a tree to listen; and these passages of Scripture
came to his mind while listening to the voice of
devotion from the wigwam: ‘All the ends of
the earth shall remember and turn unto the
Lord.’ ‘0 thou that hearest prayer, unto thee
shall all flesh come.’”
He says that he had seen on Indian call his
children in from the field where they were
gathering corn, when he asked a blessing upon
the food before them, “with much affection,
having but a homely dinner to eat.” Mr.
Shepard adds, “I wish the like hearts and
wayes were seen in many English who professe
themselves Christians, and that herein and many

124 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

the like excellencies they were become Indians,
excepting that name, as he did, in another case,
except these bonds.”
    The following is the substance of an order
passed by the General Court at Boston, May
26, 1647, concerning the Indians.
    “Upon information that the Indians dwelling
among us, and submitted to our government,
being by the ministry of the Word brought to
some civility, are desirous to have a course of
ordinary judicature set up among them:
    “It is ordered, therefore, by authority of this
Court, that some one or more of the magistrates,
as they shall agree among themselves, shall,
once every quarter, keep a Court at such place
where the Indians ordinarily assemble to hear
the Word of God, and they then hear and deter-
mine all causes civill and criminall, not being
capitall, concerning the Indians only; and that
the Indian sachims shall have libertie to take
order in the nature of summons or attachments,
to bring any of their own people to the said Courts,
and to keep a Court of themselves every moneth,
if they see occasion, to determine small causes
of a civill nature, and such smaller criminall
causes, as the said magistrates shall refer to
them: and the said sachims shall appoint offi-
cers to serve warrants, and to execute the orders

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 126

and judgements of either of said Courts, which
officers shall from time to time bee allowed by
the said magistrates in the quarter Courts, or by
the Governour: And that all fines to bee im-
posed upon any of the Indians, in any of the said
Courts, shall goe and bee bestowed towards the
building of some meeting-houses, for education
of their poorer children in learning, or other pub-
lick use, by the advice of said magistrates, and
of Master Eliot, or of such other elder, as shall
ordinarily instruct them in the true Religion.
And it is the desire of this court that the said
magistrates, and Master Eliot, or such other
elders as shall attend the keeping of the said
Courts, will carefully indeavour to make the In-
dians understand our most usefull Lawes, and
the principles of reason, justice, and equity,
whereupon they are grounded; and it is desired
that some care may be taken of the Indians on
the Lord's dayes.”
Mr. Shepard speaks of his brother Eliot as a
man “whom, in other respects, but especially
for his unweariednesse in this work of God,
going up and down among them, and doing
them good, I think we can never love nor
honor enough.” Mr. Eliot says, “That which
I first aymed at was to declare and deliver
unto them the law of God, to civilize them;

126 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

which course the Lord took by Moses, to
give the law to that rude company, because
of transgression, Galatians 3:19, to convince,
bridle, restrain, and civilize them, and also
to humble them. But when I first attempted
it they gave no heed unto it, but were weary,
and rather despised what I said. A while
after God stirred up in some of them a de-
sire to come into the English fashions, and live
after their manner, but knew not how to at-
tain unto it; yea, despaired that it should ever
come to passe in their dayes; but thought that,
in 40 years more, some Indians would be all one
English, and in an hundred years all Indians
hereabout would so bee: which when I heard,
(for some of them told me they thought so, and
that some wise Indians said so,) my heart moved
within me, abhorring that wee should sit still
and let that work alone, and hoping that this
notion in them was of the Lord, and that this
mind in them was a preparation to embrace the
law and Word of God; and therefore I told
them that they and wee were all one save in two
things, which make the only difference betwixt
them and us: First, wee know, serve, and pray
unto God, and they doe not. Secondly, we la-
bor and work in building, planting, clothing our-
selves, &c., and they doe not; and would they

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 127

but doe as wee doe in these things they would
bee all one with Englishmen. They said they
did not know God, and therefore could not tell
how to pray to him nor serve him. I told them
if they would learn to know God, I would teach
them; unto which they being very willing, I
then taught them, (as I sundry times had in-
deavored afore,) but never found them so forward,
attentive, and desirous till this time; and then I
told them I would come to their wigwams and
teach them, their wives and children, which
they seemed very glad of; and, from that day
forward, I have not failed to doe that poore tittle
which you know I doe.”
Mr. Eliot says that be found the usual oppo-
sition to religion among Indians which he found
among white men. The Indians of “Dorches-
ter Mill,” for example, would not, at first, regard
his instructions; “but the better sort of them per-
ceiving how acceptable this was to the English,
both to magistrates, and all the good people, it
pleased God to step in and bow their hearts, to
desire to be taught to know God.” “The Linn
Indians,” Mr. Eliot said, "are all naught save
one.” This was owing to the opposition of
their sachem.
A sober Indian going up into the country
with two of his sons, prayed us he used to do at

128      LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

home, and talked to the Indians about God and
Jesus Christ; whereupon they mocked, and
called one of his sons Jehovah, and the other
Jesus Christ.
     The Nonantum Indians early began to ob-
serve the Lord's day. They fined every violator
of the Sabbath ten shillings. One Sabbath
morning the sachem's wife went to fetch water,
when, meeting with ether Indian women, she
fell into worldly conversation with them, but
they reproved her. She insisted that it was not
improper, but the other women informed the
native Indian preacher who was to address them
that day, and he discoursed to them upon the
sanctification of the Sabbath, and in his dis-
course related what he had heard about the
sachem's wife. After sermon they had much
conversation on the subject, in which the sa-
chem's wife insisted that, inasmuch as her con-
versation was in private, and early on the
Sabbath morning, there was no harm in it; and
then she retorted upon the preacher by telling
him that he had sinned much more than she in
giving occasion to so much talk about this sub-
ject on the Sabbath. The whole matter was, by
common consent, referred to Mr. Eliot for his
arbitration.
     Towards evening, on another Sabbath, two

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 129

strangers came to Waban's tent (Nonantum);
and when they came in, they told him that,
about a mile off, they had chased a racoon into
a hollow tree, and that if he would send his ser-
vants to fell the tree, they might catch him,
which Waban, in his desire to entertain the
strangers with fresh game, accordingly did.
Whereupon the Indians were much displeased,
and this case was, by request, made the subject
of discourse on the next lecture day.
Another case was this. “Upon a Lord’s day
their public meeting holding long, and some-
what late when they came at home, in one wig-
wam the fire was almost out, and therefore the
man of the house, as he sat by the fireside, took
his hatchet and split a little dry piece of wood,
which they reserve on purpose for such use, and
so kindled his fire, which, being taken notice of
it was thought to bee such a worke.as might not
lawfully bee done upon the Sabbath day, and
therefore the case was propounded the lecture
following for their better information.”
A great improvement was soon visible among
them in their treatment of their wives. A man
who had offended in this respect was brought
before the assembly at n time when the governor
and many of the colonists happened to be present.
The man being publicly accused of beating his

130     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

wife, made no defence, but confessed his sin,
and being kindly admonished and instructed, he
turned his face to the wall and wept; “and such
was the modest, penitent, and melting behaviour
of the man that it much affected all to see it in
a barbarian, and all did forgive him; onely this
remained, that they executed their law notwith-
standing his repentance, and required his fine,
to which he willingly submitted, and paid it.”
     The power of conscience among them is il-
lustrated by Mr. Eliot in the two following an-
ecdotes.
     The son of a sachem, 14 or 16 years old, had
been intoxicated; and being reproved by his
father and mother for disobedient and rebellious
conduct, he despised their admonition. Before
Mr. E. heard of it, he had observed that on
being catechized, the fifth commandment being
required of him, he reluctantly said, “Honor thy
father,” but left out “mother.”
     George, the Indian, who asked, in a public
meeting, “who made sack?” killed a cow, and
sold it at the college for a moose. President
Dunster was unwilling that he should be directly
charged with it, but wished Mr. Eliot to inquire
of him as to the crime. But being brought be-
fore the assembly, he freely confessed his sin.
    The Indians were never weary of asking

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 131

questions in the public meetings. An old Pow-
aw once demanded, why, seeing the English
had been in the land twenty-seven years, they
had never taught the Indians to know God till
now? He added, many of us have grown old
in sin, whereas had you begun with us earlier,
we might have been good.
    The answer was that the English did repent
that they were not more earnest at the first to
seek their salvation, but the Indians were never
willing to hear till now, and as God has now
inclined their hearts to hear, the English were
striving to redeem the time.
     Another question was of deep interest. One
of them said, That before he knew God, he
thought he was well, but since, he had found
his heart to be full of sin, and more sinful than
it ever was before; and that this had been a
great trouble to him; that at that day his heart
was but little better than it was at first, and he
was afraid it would be as bad as it was before,
and therefore he sometimes wished that he might
die before he should be so bad again! Now,
said he, my question is, Is this wish a sin?
Mr. E. says this question was evidently the
result of his own experience and seemed to be
sincere .
     Another question was this:

132 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

    Whither do our little children go when they
die, seeing they have not sinned?
    This 1ed to an exposition of the depravity of
man's nature, and of the part which it is hoped
dying infants have in the redemption made by
Christ, and the covenant relation of the children
of believers, which last doctrine Mr. Eliot says,
“was exceedingly grateful unto them.”
      The whole assembly at one time united and
sent a question to Mr. Eliot, by his man, as their
united question, viz:
     “Whether any of them should go to heaven,
seeing they found their hearts full of sin, and
especially full of the sin of lust?” At the next
lecture held at “Dorchester mill,” occasion was
taken to preach to them from Matt. 11:28, 29.
“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden,” &c., when the justifying grace of Christ
to all who are weary and sick of sin was fully
and earnestly set forth. But at this time they
repeated their fearful apprehension that “none
of them would go to heaven.”
     A question which uniformly troubled all who
began to think of embracing religion was this:
    “If we leave off Powawing and pray to God,
what shall we do when we are sick?” For
though they had some knowledge of the medici-
nal qualities in certain roots and herbs, they of

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 133

course had no knowledge or the human system,
and hence no skill in applying their remedies,
but relied on the unties and unearthly gestures
and incantations of their Powaws to make the
medicines take effect. Mr. Eliot expressed the
desire that the Lord would stir up the hearts of
some people in England to give some mainte-
nance towards a school or academy, wherein
there should be “Anatomies, and other instruc-
tions that way.” Mr. E. had himself showed
them an anatomy, the only one he says the
English had ever had in the country. By a
course of instruction in medicine Mr. E. believed
that he could most effectually, and perhaps, in
the only way, “root out their Powaws.”
     The Indians proposed this question to Mr.
Eliot:
    “What shall we say to some Indians who
say to us, what do you get by praying to God,
and believing in Jesus Christ? You go naked
still, and are as poor us we. Our corn is as
good as yours; and we take more pleasure than
you; if we saw that you got any thing by pray-
ing to God, we would do so.”
    Mr. E. answered to them on this point as
follows: “First, God gives two sorts of good
things; 1. little things, which he showed by
his little finger, (‘for they use and delight in

VOL. III. 12

134 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

demonstrations;’) 2. great things, (holding up
his thumb). The little mercies he said are
riches, clothes, food, sack, houses, cattle, and
pleasures, all which serve the body for a little
while, and in this life only. The great mercies
are wisdom, the knowledge of God, Christ,
eternal life, repentance and faith; these ate for
the soul, and eternity. Though God did not
give them· so· many little things, through the
knowledge of the Gospel, he gave them the
greater things which are better. This he
proved by an illustration: when Foxun, the
Mohegan Counselor, who is counted the wisest
Indian in the country, was in the Bay; I did on
purpose bring him unto you; and when he was
here, you saw he was a fool in comparison of
you, for you could speak of God, and Christ,
and heaven, &c.; but he sat and had not one
word to say unless you talked of such poor
things as hunting, wars, &c.”
He also told them that they had some more
clothes than the wicked Indians; and the reason
why they had so few, was because they had so
little wisdom; but if they were wise to obey
God's commands, for example, “Six days shalt
thou labor,” they would have clothes, houses,
cattle, and riches, as the English have.
Many questions and cases of dispute arose

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 135

out of their old practice or gaming, to which
they were greatly addicted. The irreligious
Indians demanded the old stakes of some who
had been convinced of the sin of gaming, and
had declined to pay their forfeits. The winners
however, insisted on being payed. Mr. Eliot
had no little trouble in settling the matters of
casuistry and conscience which thus occurred.
But he took this method in many cases. He
prevailed on the creditor to accept one half
of his demand, having first showed him the
sinfulness of gaming. He then told the debtor
in private that God requires us to fulfill our
promises though to our hurt, and then asked
him if he would pay half. In this way such
cases were many of them settled, for the credit-
ors ref used Mr. Eliot's proposition, that whoever
challenged a debt incurred by gaming should
go before the Governor with his demand.
The demand upon Mr. Eliot for agricultural
and other Implements soon increased beyond
his ability to supply them. The women were
desirous of learning to spin; wheels were pro-
cured for them. The men began to supply the
English market all the year round, in the win-
ter with brooms, staves, eel-pots, baskets, and
turkies; in the spring with cranberries, fish, and
strawberries; in the summer, with whortleber-

136 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

ries, grapes and fish; and in the autumn, with
cranberries, fish and venison. Some of them
worked with the English in haying time, and
harvest; but it was hard work for them with
their old habits of indolence. “Old boughs,”
says Mr. Eliot, “must be bent a little at once;
if we can set the young twigges in a better bent,
it will bee God's mercy.”
Mr. Eliot fell in with a Narragansett Sachem,
and having spoken to him on· the subject of
religion, asked him if he did not believe such
things? The Sachem seemed averse to answer,
and Mr. E. asked him why he had not profited
more by the instructions or a Mr. Williams,
their teacher? He answered that the Indians did
not care to learn of him, because he is no good
man, but goes out and works upon the Sabbath
day. “I name it,” says Thomas Shepard, “not
to show what glimmerings nature may have
concerning the observation of the Sabbath; but
to show what the ill example of the English
may do, and to show what a stumbling-block to
all religion the loose observation of the Sab-
bath is.”
In a few years Mr. Eliot says a visible im-
provement had taken place in many of the
domestic habits of the Indians, indicating an
advancement in the principles and sentiments

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 137

of civilization. Not only were they as a gen-
eral thing respectably clothed, but the common
wigwams at Nonantum equalled those of Sa-
chems in other tribes, and instead of herding
together in one room they made divisions and
apartments in their houses from feelings of
propriety and modesty.
Questions relating to the plurality of their
wives perplexed them, and gave occasion for the
same judicious decisions on this delicate and
trying subject which are now made by our wise
and discreet missionaries in lands where the
same practice exists. While some good men
are in favor of driving the ploughshare at once
among the roots of this and every other evil
in the institutions and customs of corrupt soci-
ety, it is found impracticable to do so, by those
who see the complicated nature of these prac-
tices, without occasioning still greater evils.
Remedial measures are in operation among the
converts from heathenism and paganism by
which caste and polygamy and other social
evils will in time, but not in a day or year, be
done away. The process of cure was more
rapid among the Indians, than it is among the
Oriental tribes, for reasons connected with the
character of the people, the ascendency which
religion soon had among them, and the absence
12*

138 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

of opposing influences in the government
tribes.
     The text from which Mr. Eliot preached his
first sermon at Nonantum, (“Prophesy to the
wind,” &c.) and which made Waban, whose
name translated, is, the wind, had produced
a decided effect on him, and he became useful in
diffusing the knowledge of the Gospel to other
tribes, at Concord, at places on the Merrimack,
and elsewhere. He remained steadfast in the
faith, and never ceased to think that the Word
of God was directed specially to himself in that
first sermon of Mr. Eliot, though Mr. E. says
that he had no design in the coincidence be-
tween the text and the Indian's name.
     Mr. Eliot once preached to the Indians from
these words, Ephes, 6:11, “Have no fellow-
ship with the unfruitful works or darkness,” &c.
One of the questions proposed after sermon was
this:
     What do Englishmen think of Mr. Eliot,
because he comes among wicked Indians to
teach them?
     Another question was as follows:
Suppose two men sin. The one knows he
sinneth, and the other doth not know sin, will
God punish both alike?
     Another asked, Suppose there should be one

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 147

     Is faith set in my heart or in my mind?
     Why have not beasts a soul as man hath,
seeing they have love, anger, &c., as man hath?
     How is the Spirit of God in us, and where
is it?
     Why doth God punish in hell for ever? man
doth not so, but after a time lets them out of
prison again. And if they repent in hell, why
will not God let them out again?
     How shall I know when God accepts my
prayers?
     How doth Christ make peace between man
and God? and what is the meaning of that
point?
     Why did the Jews give the watchmen money
to tell a lie?
     If I hear God's word when I am young, and
do not believe, but when I am old I believe,
what will God say?
     In wicked dreams doth the soul sin?
     Doth the soul in heaven know things done
here on earth?
     Doth the soul in heaven remember what it
did here on earth before he died?
     If my heart be full of evil thoughts, and I re-
pent and pray, and a few hours after it is full
again, and I repent and pray again; and if after

148 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

this it be lull of evil thoughts again, what will
God say?
   Why did the earth shake at Christ's resur-
rection?
    What if a minister wear long hair, as some
other men do, what will God say?
    If a man will make his daughter marry a
man whom she doth not love, what will God
say?
    Why doth Christ compare the kingdom of
heaven to a net?
    Why doth God so hate them that teach others
to commit sin?

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 149

CHAPTER VI.

Letters respecting the Indians, from individuals in New England, to
their friends in Old England. Speculations about the last tribes of
Israel. Remarks. Questions. Samuel Gorton, the Familist. Two
Indians controvert his opinions. Interesting conversation. Labors
of the Mayhews on Martha’s Vineyard. Covenant of the Indians.
of Martha’s Vineyard. Questions. Merrimack Indians. Accounts
by the Mayhews of, their labors. Questions.

SOME of Mr. Eliot's letters respecting the In-
dians were published in London, with an appen-
dix by Rev. “J. D.”' As we are interested and
entertained occasionally by a supposed discovery
of the lost tribes of Israel, it may not be useless
to give here some of the speculations and rea-
sonings of this good man, on this subject as
relating to the North American Indians. He
begins his appendix with the following words:
“The works of the Lord are great, sought
out of oil them that love them, saith the Psalm-
ist; Ps. 111: 3. The word which we, render
sought out, hath a mighty emphasis in it:
'Tis a word used sometimes to denote the elab-
orate care of digging and searching into mines.
And sometimes it's made use of to expresse the
13*

150 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

accurate labors of those who comment upon
writings. Indeed, there is a golden mine in
every work of God; and the foregoing letters to
a gracious eye, are as a discovery of a far more
precious mine in America, than those gold and
silver mines of India: For they bring tidings of
the unsearchable riches of Christ, revealed unto
poore soules in those parts.. . . I could not
pass over so rich a mine without digging.
. . . . “The general consent of many
judicious and godly divines doth induce consid-
ering minds to believe that the conversion of
the Jews is at hand. It's the expectation of
some of the wisest Jews now living, that about
the year 1660, Either we shall be Mosaick or
else that themselves Jews shall be Christians.
There may be at least a remnant of
the generation of Jacob in America, (peradven-
ture some of the Ten tribes dispersions.) And
that those sometimes poor now precious Indians
may be as the first fruits of the glorious harvest
of Israel's redemption. The observation is not
to be slighted, (though the observer, Mr. Shep-
ard, said it was more cheerful than deep) that
the first Text out or which Mr. Eliot preached,
was about the dry bones . . . . Why may we
not at least conjecture, that God by a special
finger pointed out that text to be first opened

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 151

which immediate concerned the persons to
whom it was preached?
     He then states the reasons why the Indian
tribes may be of Jewish descent, viz:
     "1. They have at least a traditional knowl-
edge of God, as the Maker of heaven and earth.
     2. Whatever they attribute unto others, this
they peculiarly attribute unto God, viz: that
all things, both good and evil, are managed by
his Providence.
     3. Before they had received any instruction
from the English, upon observation of a bad
year, or other ill success, they did meet and
weep as unto God, and on the other side, upon
a good year, or good success in any business,
as of War, they used to meet and make a kind
of acknowledgement of thanks to God in it.
     4. They are careful to preserve the memory
of their families, mentioning Uncles, Grand-
parents. &c. A thing which bad a great tang
of, and affinity to, the Jews' care of preserving
the memorial of their Tribes.
     5. Those of them who have been wrought
upon, tell of some face of Religion, wisdom and
manners which long agoe their ancestors had,
but that it was lost.
    6. The better and more sober of them de-

152 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

light much to express themselves in parables,
a thing peculiar to the Jews.
These and the like considerations prevail
with me to entertain (at least) a conjecture that
these Indians of America may be Jews, especial-
ly of the Ten Tribes. And therefore to hope
that the work of Christ among them may be as
preparatory to his own appearing.”
Some of these reasons appertain with equal
force to other tribes of the earth who have been
supposed by different writers to be remnants of
the house of Israel. While we should respect
the interest and zeal of those who study the
providence of God, with a view to finding out
his designs, and to be prepared for the fulfillment
of his promises, we should. not easily yield our
confidence to any hypothesis which rests merely
on conjecture, or depends for support in reasons
which apply equally well to theories inconsistent
with it. This is not the place lo remark at
large on the interesting subject of the Jews and
their conversion, but the impression seems hap-
pily to be extending that the sooner we cease to
regard them as destined to a national conver-
sion, and look at them us sinners of the human
family, like Mohammedans and Papists, and re-
frain from efforts and n treatment which foster
their spirit of separation and their assumption

       LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.    153

of superior dignity and special claim to respect
and favor, the sooner we shall employ ourselves
in efforts to address them in a way which will
be far more likely to humble their pride, and
prepare them to submit to the Gospel, than the
somewhat adulatory and flattering method of
approaching them and speaking of them ·will
ever be.
     The improvement which the writer above
named makes of Mr. Eliot's letters in the fol-
lowing exhortations is far more obviously correct
than his speculations about the origin and desti-
ny of the Indians. He says the work of grace
among them should lead the people of England,
   “First, To study and search into the works of
the Lord, to see how he counter plots the ene-
my in his designs; In making the late Bishops
persecuting of the godly tend to the promoting
of the Gospel.
    Secondly, To take heed of despising the day
of small things.
    Thirdly, To be ashamed or and bewail our
want of affection to and estimation of that glory-
ous Gospel, and those great things of Christ,
which these poor Heathens upon the little Glym-
merings and tasts so exceedingly value and
improve.
    Fourthly, Doth not the observation of the

154 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

precedings reports clearly confirm the doctrine of
the Sabbath, and the practice of prayer. O
tremble, ye Sabbath slighters and duty despis-
ers, Christ hath witnesses against you in Amer-
ica The converted Heathen in New
England goe beyond you, O ye Apostolic
Christmas in England.
    Arise ye heads of our Tribes in Old England,
and extend your help to further Christ's labour-
ers in New England.
     Rouse up yourselves, my Brethren! ye
preachers of the Gospel, this work concerns you
Contrive and plot, preach for and presse the ad-
vancement hereof.
    Come forth ye masters money, part with
your gold to promote the Gospel. If you give
any thing yearly, remember Christ will be your
Pensioner. If you give any thing into banke,
Christ will keep account thereof and reward it.”

The reader, it is to be hoped, will not be
weary of the Indian questions, which Mr. Eliot
sent to his friends in England as often as he
wrote to them. These questions, are not only
curious, but they suggest valuable thoughts and
lead to profitable reflections.
If a man know God's Word, said one of
them at the Indian lecture, but believe it not,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 155

and he teach others, is that good teaching? and
if others believe that which he teacheth, is that
believing or faith? Upon this question Mr.
Eliot asked them how they could tell when a
man knoweth God's Word, that he doth not be-
lieve it? They answered, When he doth not
do in his practice answerable to that which he
knoweth.
    If I teach on the Sabbath that which you have
taught us; and forget some, is that a sin? and
some I mistake and teach wrong, is that a sin?
    Do all evil thoughts come from the devil, and
all good ones from God?
    What is watchfulness?
    What should I pray for at night, and what
at morning, and what on the Sabbath day?
    What is true Repentance? or how shall I
know when this is true?
    How must I wait on God?
    Shall we see Christ at the day of judgment?
    When I pray for a soft heart, why is it still
hard?
    You said, God promised to go with Moses;
how doth he go with us?
    When such die as never heard of Christ,
whither do they go?
    When the wicked die, do they first go to

156 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

heaven to the judgment-seat of Christ to be
judged, and then go away to hell?
     Why doth God say, I am the God of the
Hebrews?
     When Christ arose, whence came his soul?
When it was replied, From heaven; · they said
How then was Christ punished in our stead?
or when did he suffer in our stead, afore death,
or after?
     When I pray every day, why is my heart so
hard still, even as a stone?
     If one purposeth to pray, and yet dieth before
that time, whither goeth his soul?
     Why must we be like salt?
     Doth God know who shall repent, and who
not?--Why then did God use so much meanes
with Pharaoh?
     What meaneth that ‘blessed are they that
mourn’?
     When I see a good example, and know that
it is right, why do I not do the same?
     What anger is good, and what is bad?
     Do they dwell in separate houses in heaven,
or all together, and what do they?
     If a child die before he sin, whither goeth his
soul? ‘By this question,’ says: Mr. E., ‘it did
please the Lord to convince them of original sin
blessed be his name.’

         LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.       157

     If one that prays to God sins like him that
prays not, is not he worse? ‘And while,’ says
Mr. Eliot, ‘they discoursed of this point, and
about hating wicked persons, one of them shut
it up with this: They must love the man and
do him good, but hate his sin.’
     Why do Englishmen so eagerly kill all
snakes?
     May a man have good words and deeds, and
a bad heart, and another have bad words and
deeds, and yet a good heart?
     What is it to eate Christ's flesh, and drink his
blood; what meaneth it?
     What meaneth a new heaven and a new
earth?
     If but one parent believe, what state are our
children in?
     How doth much sinne make grace abound?
What meaneth that, We cannot serve two
masters?
     Can they in Heaven see us here on earth?
Do they see and know each other? Shall I
know you in heaven?
     If all the world be burnt up, where shall hell be?
     Do they know each other in Hell?
     What meaneth, that Christ meriteth eternal
life for us?
     What meaneth that, The woman brought to

Vol. III 14

158       LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

Christ a box , or oyle, and washt his feet with
tears, &c.?
     What meaneth that of the two debtors, one
oweth much, another but little?
     What meaneth God when he says, yee shall
be my jewels?
      If so old a man as I repent, may I be saved?
      When we come to believe, how many of our
children doth God take with us, whether all,
only young ones, or at what age?
      What meaneth that, Let the trees of the wood
rejoice?
      What meaneth that, The Master doth not
thank his servant for waiting on him?
      When Englishmen choose magistrates and
ministers, how do they know who be good men
that they dare trust?
      Seeing the body sinneth, why should the soul
be punished, and what punishment shall the
body have?
      If a wicked man prayeth and teacheth, doth
God accept, or what saith God?
      If a man be wise and his Sachem weak, must
he yet obey him?
      We are commanded to honour the Sachem,
but is the Sachem commanded to love us?
      When all the world is burnt up, what shall
be in the room of it? (By an old woman.)

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 159

     Mr. Eliot says, in a letter containing these
questions, “You may perceive many of the
questions arise out of such texts as I handle, and
do endeavour to communicate as much Script-
ure as I can. The word of the Lord convert-
eth, sanctifieth, and maketh wise the simple;
sometimes they aske weaker questions than
these, which I mention not; you have the best,
and when I am about writing, I am careful in
keeping a remembrance of them; it may be the
same question may be again and again asked at
several places and by several persons. The
Lord teach them to know Christ, whom to know
is eternal life. I shall entreat your supplica-
tions at the throne of grace, under the tender
wing whereof I now leave you, being forced by
the time, and rest,
      Your respectful and loving
          brother and fellow-laborer
           in the Indian work,
                      JOHN ELIOT.”

Samuel Gorton, charged with being a Fam-
ilist and Antinomian, was banished from
Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
The Familists were an Anabaptist sect founded
in Holland, in 1666, by Henry Nicholas, a
Westphalian. They held that the essence of

160 LIFE O F JOHN ELIOT.

religion consists in the feelings of divine love,
(and hence they were coiled the Family of love,
and familists), that all other religious tenets,
whether relating to matters of faith or modes of
worship, are of no consequence, and that it
is indifferent what opinions Christians enter-
tain concerning God, provided their hearts are
filled with the emotions of piety and love.
They were confuted by Dr. Henry More, and
by George Fox, the Quaker. A proclamation
was issued against them by Queen Elizabeth in
1580.
     This Gorton in 1650 was in Rhode Island.
Two of the Nonantum Indians mode a visit to
Providence and Warwick, and spent a Sabbath
and heard Gorton and his followers explain their
views, and afterwards had some conversation
with them.
    Upon their return, on a lecture day, before the
people had fully assembled, these two Indians
addressed a question to Mr. Eliot; and the con-
versation which ensued is recorded by him as
illustrating the proficiency in Christian knowl-
edge to which some of the Indians had attained,
and their ability to withstand false teachers.
    The question was this: what is the reason
that seeing those English people, where they had
been, have the same Bible that Mr. Eliot has,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 161

yet do not speak the same things? Being asked
the reason of his question, they said, They had
been at Providence and Warwick, and they
perceived by conversation with them that they
differed from Mr. E.; they heard their public
exercises, but did not understand what they
meant, though they understood the English
language well. Being asked what they said,
they replied, they said thus:
    They (that is Mr. Eliot and his friends) teach
you that there is a heaven and a hell, but there
is no such matter.
    Mr. E. asked them what reason they gave for
this assertion.
    Because there is no other heaven but what is
in the hearts of good men, and no other hell but
what is in the hearts of bad men.
    Mr. E. What did you say to that?
    Indians. We told them we did not believe
them, because heaven is a place where good
men go when this life is ended, and hell is a
place where bad men go when they die, and
cannot be in the hearts of man.
    Mr. E. approving this answer. What else
did they say?
    Indians. They spake of Baptism, and said,
they teach you that infants must be baptized,
but that is a very foolish thing.

162 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

     Mr. E. What reason did they give?
     Indians. Because infants neither know God
nor baptism, nor what they do, and therefore it
is a foolish thing to do, it.
     Mr. E. What did you say to that?
     Indians. I could not say much; but I thought
it was better to baptize them while they be
young, and then they are bound and engaged;
but if you let them alone till they be grown up,
it may be they will fly off, and neither core for
God nor Baptism.
      Mr. E. commended this reply. What further
did they say?
      Indians. They spake of ministers, and said,
they teach you that you must have ministers,
but that is a needless thing.
      Mr. E. Why?
      lndians. They gave these reasons: First,
ministers know nothing but what they learn out
of God's book, and we have God's book as well
as they, and can tell what God saith. Again,
ministers cannot change men's hearts, God must
do that, therefore there is no need of ministers.
     Mr. E. What did you reply?
     Indians. I told them that we must do as
God commands us, and if he commands us to
have ministers we must have them. And further,
I told them I thought it was true that ministers

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 163

cannot change men's hearts; but when we do as
God bids us, and hear ministers preach, then
God will change our hearts.
     Mr. E. What else did they speak of?
     Indians. They said, they teach you that
you must have magistrates, but that is need-
less.
     Mr. E. What reason did they give?
     Indians. They said, Because magistrates
cannot give life, therefore they may not take
away life; besides, when a man sinneth, he doth
not sin against magistrates; and therefore why
should they punish them? but they sin against
God, and therefore we must leave them to God
to punish them.
     Mr. E. What answer did you make?
     Indians. I said to that as to the former, we
must do as God commands us. If God com-
mands us to have magistrates, and commands
them to punish sinners, then we must obey.
     In answer to the question, Why all who have
the Bible do not speak the same things. Mr.
E. preached on that occasion from 2 Thes, 2:
10, 11. “Because they believed not the truth
that they might be saved; for this cause God
shall send them strong delusions that they might
believe a lie,” &c.
    The Rev. Thomas Mayhew, and his son the

164 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

Rev. Experience Mayhew, prosecuted the work
of evangelizing the Indians of Martha's Vine-
yard with signal success. As the relations
which they give respecting the Indians, and the
progress of the Gospel among them, correspond
so nearly with the foregoing narratives, it is not
thought necessary to speak of them at large.
Some idea of the principles which were incul-
cated by the Mayhews, and of the influence
which they exerted upon the natives, may be
derived from the following covenant which Mr.
Thomas Mayhew wrote for them, and in which
they all with free consent willingly and thank-
fully joined.

COVENANT OF THE INDIANS OF MARTHA'S VINE-
YARD.

“Wee, the distressed Indians of the Vineyard,
(or NOPE, the Indian name of the Island.) that
beyond all memory have been without the true
God, without a Teacher, and without a Law,
the very servants of sin and satan, and without
pence, for God did justly vex us for our sins;
having lately, through his mercy, heard of the
name or the True God, the name of his Son
Christ Jesus, with the holy Ghost, the Com-
forter, three Persons, but one most Glorious God,
whose name is JEHOVAH; wee do praise His

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 166

Glorious Greatness, and, in sorrow of our hearts,
and shame of our faces, we do acknowledge
and renounce our great and many sins, that
we end our Fathers have lived in, do run unto
him for mercy and pardon for Christ Jesus'
sake: and we do this day, through the blessing
of God upon us, and trusting to his gracious
help, give up ourselves in this Covenant, Wee,
our wives and children, to serve JEHOVAH: And
we do this day chuse Jehovah to be our God in
Christ Jesus, our Teacher, our Lawgiver in his
Word, our King, our Judge, our Ruler by his
magistrates and ministers; to fear God Himself,
and to trust in Him alone for salvation, both of
Soul and Body, in this present Life, and the
Everlasting Life to come, through his mercy in
Christ Jesus our Saviour and Redeemer, and
by the might of his Holy Spirt, to whom, with
the Father and Son, be all Glory everlasting,
Amen.”
Mr. Mayhew says, “I observed that the In-
dians, when they chose their Rulers, made
choyce of such us were best approved for their
godliness, and most likely to suppress sin, and
encourage holiness. There was an Indian that
was well approved for his Reformation, that was
suspected to have told a plain Lye for his Gain;
the business was brought to the public Meeting,

166 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and there it was notably sifted with zeal and
good affection; but at length the Indian defend-
ing himself with great disdain and hatred of
such evil, proved himself clear, and praised God
for it.”
     He also relates the following anecdote:
     “My Father and I were lately talking with an
Indian who had not long before almost lost his
life by a wound his Enemies gave him in a
secret hidden way, the mark whereof he had
upon him, and will carry it to his grave. This
man understanding of a secret Plot that was to
take away his Enemies life told my Father and
I, That he did freely forgive him for the sake of
God, and did tell this Plot lo us that the man’s
life might be preserved. This is a singular
thing, and who among the Heathen will do
so?”
     Again: “Myoxeo also lately met with an
Indian which came from the Mayn, (the main-
land,) who was of some note among them. I
heard that he told them of the great things of
God, the sinfulness and folly of the Indians, the
pardon of sin by Christ, and of a good life; and
so they were both affected, that they continued
this discourse two half nights and a day, until
their strength was spent. He told him in par-
ticular how a Beleever did live above the world,

          LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.    167

that he did keep worldly things alwaies at his
feet, (as he shewed him by a sign.) That when
they were diminished or increased, it was neither
the cause of his sorrow or joy, that he should
stoop to regard them, but he stood upright with
his heart Heavenward, and his whole desire was
after God, and his joy in Him.”
    He says, “Within two or three weeks (1652)
there came an Indian to me in business, and by
the way he told me that some Indians had lately
kept a day or Repentance to humble themselves
before God in prayer, and that the word of God
which one of them spake unto for their In-
struction, was Psal. 66:7. ‘He ruleth by his
Power forever, his eyes behold the nations, let
not the rebellious exalt themselves.’ I asked
him what their end was in keeping such a day?
He told me these six things. 1. ‘They desired
that God would slay the rebellion of their hearts.
2. That they might love God and one another.
3. That they might withstand the evil words of
wicked men, and not be drawn back from God.
4. That they might be obedient to the good
words and commands of their Rulers. 5. That
they might have their sins done away by the
Redemption of Jesus Christ, And Lastly, That
they might walk in Christ's way.’”
     In 1651, thirty Indian children were at school

168 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

which began in November, 1661. “They are
apt to learn,” says Mr. M., “and more and more
are now sending in unto them.”
“I was once,” says Mr. M., “down towards
the further end of the Island, and lodged at an
Indian's house, who was accounted a great man
among the Islanders, being the friend of the Sa-
chem on the Mayn. At this man's house where I
sate awhile, his son being about thirty years old,
earnestly desired me, in his Language, to relate
unto him some of the ancient stories of God. I
then spent a great part of the night (in such dis-
course as I thought fittest for them) as I usually
do when I lodg in their houses; what he then
heard did much affect him. And shortly after
he came and desired to joyn with the praying
Indians to serve Jehovah.” He was persecuted
for this; but he told Mr. M. “That if they
should stand with a sharp weapon against his
breast, and tell him that they would kill him
presently if he did not turn to them; but if he
would, they would love him; yet he had rather
lose his life than keep it on such terms.”
A Powaw once told Mr. M. that after he had
forsaken his powawing, and had begun to serve
God, and to renounce his Imps, which he did in
a public manner, the Imps still remained with
him tormenting him, so that he could never be

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 169

at rest, sleeping or waking. At a Lecture,
sometime after, he asked Mr. M. this question:
If a Powaw had his Imps gone from him, what
he should have instead of them to preserve him?
He was told if he believed in Christ “he should
have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, which
is a good and strong Spirit, and will so keep
him safe, that all the Devils in Hell, and Pow-
aws on earth, should not be able to do him any
hurt; and that if he did set himself against his
Imps by the strength of God, they should all
flee away like muskeetooes.” He replied, That
soon after he had believed he was not troubled
with any pain as formerly in his bed, nor dread-
ful visions of the night, but lay down with ease,
slept quietly, waked in peace, and walked in
safety; “for which he is, cry glad and praises
God.”
Mr. Mayhew also relates a fact, like the one
already given respecting the feelings and con-
duct of the Christian Indians at the death and
burial of their children. The case already men-
tioned, it will be remembered, occurred at No-
nantum: this, at Marth's Vineyard. Mr.
Mayhew says,
“I have observed the wise disposing hand of
God in another providence of his. There have
not, as I know, any man, woman, or child, died,

VOL. III. 15

182 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

     Old Massachusetts wears it
        Within her lordly crown,
     And broad Ohio bears it
        Amid her young renown;
     Connecticut hath wreathed it,
        Where her quiet foliage waves,
     And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse,
        Through all her ancient caves.

     Wachuset hides its lingering voice,
        Within his rocky heart,
     And Alleghany graves its tone
        Throughout his rocky chart;
     Monadnock on his forehead horar,
         Doth seal the sacred trust;
     Your mountains build their monuments,
         Though ye destroy their dust.

The Society for Propagating the Gospel
among the Indians of North America, an account
of which will be found in the appendix to this
volume, published a letter addressed to them by
Governor Endicott, of Massachusetts. It is inter-
esting as a testimony to the advancement which
the Indians had made in religion and civilization,
and as a specimen of the personal interest
which good rulers in former times took in the
promotion of the kingdom of Christ in the earth.
The letter is here printed as it is written, with
the Introduction by the Society:

“The next Letter you meet withall came from
the present Governour of the Massachusets,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 183

directed to the President of our Corporation,
and another of the Members thereof, which
wee thought good to publish, that every
Christion Reader may partake in the same
consolation, wherewith he and we are com-
forted; and joyne with us in prayer to the
Lord of the Harvest, that he would provide
more Labourers to enter upon this soul-saving
worke, and enlarge the hearts of all his peo-
ple in this Nation towards the same.”

“Much honoured and beloved in the Lord Jesus:

I Esteeme it not the least of God's mercies
that hath stirred up the hearts of any of the peo-
ple of God to be instrumentall in the inlarging
of the Kingdome of his deare Sonne here
amongst the Heathen Indians, which was one
end of our comming hither, and it is not frus-
trated. It was prophesied of old, and now be-
gins to be accomplished, Psal.2:8. Neither
can I but acknowledge the unspeakable good-
nesse of God that gives us favour in the sight
of our Countreymen to helpe on with so large a
hand of bounty, so glorious a work, provoked
thereunto by your worthy selves, the chiefe
Actors of so good a designe, let me (with leave)
say confidently, you will never have cause to

184 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

repent it; For the work is Gods and he doth
owne it, the labour there hath been yours, and
your Master will reward it. I think Religion
and Conscience binde me to seek unto God for
you, and to praise him with you, for what is al-
ready begun. The Foundation is laid, and such
a one that I verily beleeve the gates of Hell shall
never prevaile against. I doubt not but the
building will goe on apace, which I hope will
make glad the hearts of Thousands. Truly
Gentlemen, had you been care and eye-witnesses
of what I heard and saw on a Lecture-day
amongst them about three weeks since, you
could not but be affected therewith as I was.
To speak truly I could hardly refrain tears from
very joy to see their diligent attention to the
word first taught by one of the Indians, who
before, his Exercise prayed for the manner
devoutly and reverently (the matter I not so
well understanding) but it was with such rever-
ence, zeale, good affection, and distinct utter-
ance, that I could not but admire it; his Prayer
was about a quarter of an houre or more, as we
judged it; then he took his Text, and Mr. Eliot
their Teacher told us that were. English, the
place (there were some Ministers and diverse
other godly men there that attended me thither)
his Text was in, Matth. 13:44, 46, 46. [The

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 185

kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure, &c.
And to a merchant man, &c.] He continued
in his Exercise full halfe an houre or more, as I
judged it, his gravity and utterance was indeed
very commendable; which being done Mr. Eliot
taught in the Indian tongue about three quarters
of an hour as neer as I could guesse; the In-
dians which were in number men and women
neer about one hundred, seemed the most of
them so to attend him, (the men especially) as
if they would loose nothing of what was taught
them, which reflected much upon some of our
English hearers. After all there was a Psalme
sung in the Indian tongue, and Indian meeter,
but to an English tune, read by one of them-
selves, that the rest might follow, and he read it
very distinctly without missing a word as we
could judge, and the rest sang cheerfully, and
prettie tuneablie. I rid on purpose thither being,
distant from my dwelling about thirty eight, or
forty miles, and truly I account it one of the best
Journeyes I made these many years. Some few
dayes after I desired Mr. Eliot briefly to write
me the substance of the Indians Exercise, which
when he went thither again, namely to Naticke,
where the Indians dwell, and where the Indian
taught, he read what he remembered of it first
to their School-Muster who is an Indian, and

16*

186 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

teacheth them and their Children to write, and
I saw him write also in English, who doth it
true and very legible, and asked him if it were
right, and he said yea, also he read it unto
others, and to the man himselfe, who also
owned it. To tell you of their industry and in-
genuitie in building of an house after the Eng-
lish manner, the hewing and squaring of their
tymber, the sawing of the boards themselves,
and making of a Chimney in it, making of their
ground-sells and wall-plates, and mortising, and
letting in the studds into them artificially, there
being but one English man a Carpenter to shew
them, being but two dayes with them, is remarke-
able. They have also built a Fort there with
halfe trees cleft about eight or ten inches over,
about ten or twelve foot high, besides what is
intrencht in the ground, which is above a quar-
ter of an acre of ground, as I judge. They have
also built a foot bridge over Charles Rivers, with
Groundsells and Spurres to uphold it against the
strength of the Flood and Ice in Winter; it stood
firme last Winter, and I think it will stand many
Winters. They have made Drummes of their
owne with heads and brases very neatly and
artificially, all which shews they are industrious
and ingenuous. And they intend to build a
Water-Mill the next Summer, as I was told

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 187

when I was with them. Some of them have
learnt to mow grasse very well. I shall no
further trouble you with any more Relation at
this time concerning them. But a word or two
further with your patience concerning other In-
dians. The work of God amongst the Indians
at Martins Vineyard, is very hopefull and pros-
perous also. I mist of Mr. Mayhew their
Teacher, who was lately at Boston, and there-
fore cannot give you a particular account thereof
at this present time; yet I cannot but acquaint
you what other motions there are touching other
Indians. There came to us upon the 20th of
this instant Moneth, at the Generall Court one
Pummakummim Sachem of Qunnubbagge,
dwelling amongst or neer to the Narragansets,
who offered himselfe and his Men to worship
God, and desired that some English may be
sent from the Massachusets Government to plant
his River, that thereby he may be partaker of
Government, and may be instructed by the Eng-
lish to know God. We shall I hope take some
care and course about it, and I hope we shall
have more help to carry on that work also;
For there are some Schollers amongst us who
addict themselves to the study of the Indian
Tongue. The Lord in mercy recompence it

188 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

into your Bosomes, all that labour of love vouch-
safed to the poor Indians, which are the hearty
prayers and earnest desire of, much honoured,
Boston the 27th of
     the Eight. 1651.
        Your loving Friend in all
               service of Christ.
                      JOHN ENDECOTT.”

    The prudence and caution of Mr. Eliot in his
proceedings with regard to the formation of a
Church among the Indians are not a little re-
markable. He says,

     “In way of preparation of them thereunto, I
did this Summer call forth sundry of them in
the dayes of our public Assemblies in Gods
Worship; sometimes on the Sabbath when I
could be with them, and sometimes on Lecture
daies, to make confession before the Lord of
their former sins, and of their present knowledge
of Christ, and experience of his Grace; which
they solemnly doing, I wrote down their Con-
fessions: which having done, and being in my
own heart hopeful that there was among them fit
matter for a Church, I did request all the Elders
about us to hear them reade, that so they might
give me advice what to do in this great and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 189

solemn business; which being done on a day
appointed for the purpose, it pleased God to give
their Confessions such acceptance in their hearts,
as that they saw nothing to hinder their pro-
ceeding, to try how the Lord would appear
therein. Whereupon, after a day of Fasting
and Prayer among ourselves, to seek the Lord
in that behalf, there was another day of Fasting
and Prayer appointed, and publick notice thereof,
and of the names of Indians were to confess, and
enter into Covenant that day, was given to all
the Churches about us, to seek the Lord yet
further herein, and to make solemn Confessions
of Christ his Truth and Grace, and further to try
whether the Lord would vouchsafe such grace
unto them, as to give them acceptance among
the Saints, into the fellowship of Church-Estate,
and enjoyment of those Ordinances which the
Lord hath betrusted his Churches withal. That
day was the thirteenth of the eighth month.
When the Assembly was met, the first part of
the day was spent in Prayers unto God, and
exercise in the Word of God; in which my self
first and after that two of the Indians did Exer-
cise; and so the time was spent till after ten or
near eleven of the clock. Then addressing our-
selves unto the further work of the day, I first
requested the reverend Elders (many being pres-

190 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

ent) that they would ask them Questions touch-
ing the fundamental Points of Religion, that
thereby they might have some tryal of their
knowledg, and better that way, than if them-
selves should of themselves declare what they
beleeve, or than if I should ask them Questions
in these matters: After a little conference here
about, it was concluded, That they should first
make confession of their experience in the Lords
Work upon their hearts, been use in so doing, it
is like something will be discerned of their
knowledg in the Doctrines of Religion: and if
after those Confessions there should yet be cause
to inquire further touching my Point of Religion
it might be fitly done at last. Whereupon we
so proceeded, and called them forth in order to
make confession. It was moved in the Assem-
bly by Reverend Mr. Wilson, that their former
Confessions also, as well as these which they
made at present, might be read unto the Assem-
bly, because it was evident that they were
daunted much, to speak before so great and
grave an Assembly as that was, but time did not
permit it so to be then: yet now in my writing
of their Confessions I will take that course, that
so it may appear what encouragement there was
to proceed so far as we did; and that such as
may reade these their Confessions, may the bet-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 191

ter discern of the reality of the Grace of Christ
in them.”
     He afterwards says.
     “In the year 52 I perceiving the grace of God
in sundry-of them, and some poor measure of
fitnesse (as I was perswaded) for the enjoyment of
Church-fellowship, and Ordinances of Jesus
Christ, I moved in that matter, according as I
have in the Narration thereof, briefly declared.
In the year 53 I moved not that way, for these
Reasons.
     I having sent their Confessions to be published
in England, I did much desire to hear what ac-
ceptance the Lord gave unto them, in the hearts
of his people there, who daily labour at the
Throne of grace, and by other expressions of
their loves, for an holy birth of this work of the
Lord, to the praise of Christ, and the inlarge-
ment of his Kingdoms. As also my desire was,
that by such Books as might be sent hither, the
knowledge of their Confessions might be spread
here, unto the better and fuller satisfaction of
many, then the transacting thereof in the pres-
ence of some could doe. These Books came by
the latter Ships (as I remember) that were bound
for New England, and were but newly out
when they set saile, and therefore I had not that
answer that year, which my soule desired,

192 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

though something I bad which gave encourage-
ment, and was a tast of what I have more fully
heard from severall this year, praised be the
Lord.
Besides there fell a great damping and dis-
couragement upon us by a jealousie too deeply
apprehended, though utterly groundlesse, viz.
That even these praying Indian, were in a con-
spiracy with others, and with the Dutch, to doe
mischief to the English. In which matter,
though the ruling part of the People looked oth-
erwise upon them, yet it was no season for me
to stir or move in this matter, when the waters
were so troubled. This businesse needeth a
calmer season, and I shall account it a favour of
God when ever he shall please to cause his face
to shine upon us in it. Yet this I did the last
year, after the Books had been come a season,
there being a great meeting at Boston, from other
Colonies as well as our owne, and the Commis-
sioners being there, I thought it necessary to
take that opportunity to prepare and open the
way in a readinesse against this present year, by
making this Proposition unto them; namely,
That they having now seen their confusions, if
upon farther triall of them in point of knowl-
edge, they be found to have a competent measure
of understanding in the fundamentall points of

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 193

Religion; and also, if there be due testimony
of their conversation, that they walke in a
Christian manner according to their light, so
that Religion is to be seen in their lives;
whether then it be according to God, and ac-
ceptable to his people, that they he called up unto
Church estate? Unto which I had I blesse the
Lord, a generall approbation.
Accordingly this year 54 I moved the Elders,
that they would give me advice and assistance
in this great businesse, and that they would at a
fit season examine the Indians in point of their
knowledge, been use we found by the former
triall, that a day will be too little (if the Lord
please to call them on to Church-fellowship) to
examine them in points of Knowledge, and hear
their Confessions, and guide them into the holy
Covenant of the Lord. Seeing all these things
are to be transacted in o. strange language, and
by Interpreters, and with such a people as they
be in these their first beginnings. But if they
would spend a day on purpose to examine them
in their knowledge there would be so much the
more liberty to doe it fully and throughly, (as
such a work ought to be) as also when they may be
called to gather into Church-Communion, it
may suffice that some one of them should make
a Doctrinall Confession before the Lord and his

VOL. III. 17

194 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

people, as the rule of faith which they build
upon, the rest attesting their consent unto the
same: And themselves (the Elders I mean, if
the Lord so far assist the Indians, as to give
them satisfaction) might testifie that upon Ex-
amination they have found a competency of
knowledge in them to inable them unto such a
work and state. And thus the work might be
much shortned, and more comfortably expedited
in one day. I found no unreadinesse in the
Elders to further this work.
They concluded to attend the work, and for
severall Reasons advised that the place should
be at Roxbury, and not at Natick. and that the
Indians should be called thither, the time they
left to me to appoint, in such a season as
wherein the Elders may be at best liberty from
other publick occasions. The time appointed
was the 13 of the 4 moneth; meanwhile I dis-
patched Letters unto such as had knowledge in
the Tongue, requesting that they would come
and help in interpretation, or attest unto the
truth of my Interpretations. I sent also for my
Brother Mayku, who accordingly came, and
brought an Interpreter with him, Others whom
I had desired, came not. I informed the Indians
of this appointment, and of the end it was ap-
pointed for, which they therefore called, and still

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 195

doe, when they have occasion to speak of it,
Natootomuhteae kesuk, A day of asking Ques-
tions, or, A day of Examination. I advised
them to prepare for it, and. to pray earnestly
about it, that they might be accepted among
Gods people, if it were the will of God.
     It pleased God so to guide, that there was a
publick Fast of all the Churches, betwixt this our
appointment, and the accomplishment thereof:
which day they kept, as the Churches did, and
this businesse of theirs was a Principall matter
in their Prayers.”
      It will be useful, as well as interesting, to
give some of the “Confessions of Indians”
which were made and considered in preparation
for their entering into the Church state.

    CONFESSION OF TOTHERSWAMP.

“Before I prayed unto God, the English, when
I came unto their houses, often said unto me,
Pray to God; but I having many friends who
loved me, and I loved them, and they cared not
for praying to God, and therefore I did not: But
I thought in my heart, that if my friends should
die, and I live, l then would pray to God; soon
after, God so wrought, that they did almost all
die, few of them left; and then my heart feared,

196 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and I thought, that now I will pray unto God,
and yet I was ashamed to pray; end if I eat and
did not pray, I was ashamed of that also; so
that I had a double shame upon me: Then you
came unto us, and taught us, and said unto us,
Pray unto God; and after that, my heart grew
strong, and I was no more ashamed to pray, but
I did take up praying to God; yet at first I did
not think of God and eternal Life, but only that
the English should love me and I loved them:
But after I came to learn what sin was, by the
Commandments of God, and then I saw all my
sins, lust, gaming, &c. (he named more.) You
taught, That Christ knoweth all our hearts, and
seeth what is in them, if humility, or anger, or
evil thoughts, Christ seeth all that is in the
heart; then my heart feared greatly, because
God was angry for all my sins; yea, now my
heart is full of evil thoughts, and my heart runs
away from God, therefore my heart feareth and
mourneih. Every day I see sin in my heart;
one man brought sin into the world, and I am
full of that sin, and I break Gods word every
day. I see I deserve not pardon, for the first
mans sinning; I can do no good, for I am like
the Devil, nothing but evil thoughts, and words,
and works. I have lost all likeness to God, and
goodness, and therefore every day I sin against

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 197

God, and I deserve death and damnation: The
first man brought sin first; and I do every day
add to that sin, more sins; but Christ hath done
for us all righteousness, and died for us because
of our sins, and Christ teacheth us, That if we
cast away our sins, and trust in Christ, then
God will pardon all our sins; this I beleeve
Christ hath done, I can do no righteousness, but
Christ hath done it for me; this I beleeve, and
therefore I do hope for pardon. When I first
heard the Commandments, I then took up pray-
ing to God and cast off sin. Again, When I
heard, and understood Redemption by Christ,
then I beleeved Jesus Christ to take away my
sins: every Commandment taught me sin, and
my duty to God. When you ask me why do I
love God? I answer, Because he giveth me all
outward blessings, as food, clothing, children, all
gifts of strength, speech, bearing; especially
that he giveth us a Minister to teach us, and
giveth us Government; and my heart feareth
lest Government should reprove me; but the
greatest mercy of all is Christ, to give us pardon
and life.”

198 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

TOTHERSWAMP.

The Confession which he made on the Fast day
before the great Assembly was as followeth:

I confess in the presence of the Lord, before
I prayed, many were my sins, not one good
word did I speak, not one good thought did I
think, not one good action did I doe: I did act
all sins, and full was my heart of evil thoughts;
when the English did tell me of God, I cared
not for it, I thought it enough if they loved me:
I had many friends thot loved me, and I thought
if they died I would pray to God: and afterward
it so came to pass; then was my heart ashamed,
to pray I was ashamed, and if I prayed not, I
was ashamed; a double shame was upon me:
when God by you taught us, very much ashamed
was my heart; then you taught us that Christ
knoweth all our hearts: therefore truly he saw
my thoughts, and I had thought, if my kindred
should die I would pray to God; therefore they
dying, I must now pray to God; and therefore
my heart feared, for I thought Christ knew my
thoughts: then I heard you teach, The first
man God made was named Adam, & God made
a Covenant with him, Do and live, thou and thy
Children; if thou do not thou must die, thou

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 199

and thy Children: And we are Children of
Adam poor sinners, therefore we all have sinned,
for we have broke Gods Covenant, therefore evil
is my heart, therefore God is very angry with
me, we sin against him every day; but this
great mercy God hath given us, he hath given
us his only Son, and promiseth, That whosoever
belecveth in Christ shall be saved: for Christ
hath dyed for us in our stead, for our sins, and
he hath done for us all the words of God, for I
can do no good net, only Christ can, and only
Christ hath done nil for us; Christ hath de-
served pardon for us, and risen again, he hath
ascended to God, and doth ever pray for us;
therefore all Beleevers Souls shall goe to Heaven
to Christ. But when I heard that word of
Christ, Christ said Repent and Beleeve, and
Christ seeth who Repenteth, then I said, dark
and weak is my Soul, and I am one in darkness,
I am a very sinful man, and now I pray to
Christ for life. Hearing you teach that Word
that the Scribes and Pharisees said Why do thy
Disciples break the Tradition of the Fathers?
Christ answered, Why do you make void the
Commandments of God? Then my heart feared
that I do so; when I teach the Indians, because
I cannot teach them right, and thereby make
the word of God vain. Again, Christ said If

200     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

the blind lead the blind they will both fall into
the ditch; Therefore I feared that I am one
blind, and when I teach other Indians I shal
caus them to fall into the ditch. This is the
love of God to me, that he giveth me all mercy
in this world, and for them al I am thankfull;
but I confess I deserve Hell; I cannot deliver
my self, but I give my Soul and my Flesh to
Christ, and I trust my soul with him for he is
my Redeemer, and I desire to call upon him
while I live.
      This was his Confession which ended, Mr.
        Allin further demanded of him this Ques-
        tion, How he found his heart, now in the
        matter of Repentance?
    His answer was; I am ashamed of all my
sins, my heart is broken for them and melteth
in me, I am angry with my self for my sins,
and I pray to Christ to take away my sins,
and I desire that they may be pardoned.
      But it was desired that further Question
        might be forborn, lest time would be
        wanting to here them all speak.”

    The following is the Confession of Waban,
(or the wind,) the man in 'whose wigwam
Mr. Eliot preached to the Indians in the
beginning of his ministry among them, and

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 201

who, from Mr. Eliot's text, “Prophesy unto the
wind," &c., supposed that the message of God
was specially directed to himself.

CONFESSION OF WABAN.

“Before I heard of God, and before the English
came into this Country, many evil things my
heart did work, many thoughts I had in my
heart; I wished for riches, I wished to be a
witch, I wished to be a Sachem; and many such
other evils were in my heart: Then when the
English came, still my heart did the same
things; when the English taught me of God (I
coming to their Houses) I would go out of their
doors, and many years I knew nothing; when
the English taught me I was angry with them:
But a little while agoe after the great sikness, I
considered what the English do; and I had some
desire to do as they do; and after that I began
to work as they work; and then I wondered
how the English come to be so strong to labor;
then I thought I shall quickly die, and I feared
lest I should die before I prayed to God; then I
thought, if I prayed to God in our Language,
whether could God understand my prayers in
our Language; therefore I did ask Mr. Jackson,

202 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and Mr. Mahu, If God understood prayers in
our Language? They answered me God doth
understand all Languages in the World, But I
do not know how to confess, and little do I know
or Christ; I fear I shall not beleeve a great
while, and very slowly; I do not know what
grace is in my heart, there is but little good in
me; but this I know, That Christ both kept all
Gods Commandements for us, and that Christ
doth know all our hearts ; arid now I desire to
repent of all my sins: I neither have done, nor
can do the Commandements of the Lord, but I
am ashamed of 1111 I do, and I do repent of all
my sins, even of all that I do know of: I desire
that I may be converted from all my sins, and
that I might beleeve in Christ, and I desire him;
I dislike my sins, yet I do not truly pray to God
in my heart: no matter for good Words, all is
the true heart ; and this day I do not so much
desire good words, as throughly to open my
heart: I confess I can do nothing, but deserve
damnation; only Christ can help me and do for
me. But I have nothing to say for my self that
is good; I judg that I am a sinner, and cannot
repent, but Christ hath deserved pardon for us.”

‘This Confession being not so satisfactory as
was desired, Mr. Wilson testified, that he

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 203

spake these latter expressions with tears,
which I observed not, because I attended to
writing; but I gave this testimony of him,
That his conversation was without offence
to the English, so far as I knew, and among
the Indians it was exemplar: his gift is not
so much in expressing himself this way,
but in other respects useful and eminent;
it being demanded in what respects, I an-
swered to this purpose, That. his gift lay in
Ruling, Judging of Cases, wherein he is
patient, constant, and prudent, insomuch
that he is much respected among them, for
they have chosen him a Ruler of Fifty, and
he Ruleth well according to his measure.
It was further said, they thought he had
been a great drawer on to Religion; I re-
plyed, so he was in his way, and did pre-
vail with many; and so it rested.

“CONFESSION OF WILLIAM, OF SUDBURY.

I CONFESS that before I prayed, I committed all
manner of sins, and served many gods: when
the English came first, I going to their houses,
they spake to me of your God, but when I heard
of God, my heart bated it; but when they said

204 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

the Devil was my god, I was angry, because I
was proud: when I came to their houses I hated
to hear of God, I loved lust in my own house
and not God, I loved to pray to many gods.
Five years ago, I going to English houses, and
they speaking of God, I did a little like of it,
yet when I went again to my own house, I did
all manner or sins, and in my heart I did act all
sins though I would not be seen by man. Then
going to your house, I more desired to hear of
God; and my heart said, I will pray to God so
long as I live: then I went to the Minister Mr.
Browns house, and told him I would pray as
long as I lived: but he said I did not say it from
my heart, and I beleeve it. When Waban
spake to me that I should pray to God, I did so.
But I had greatly sinned against God, and had
not beleeved the Word but was proud: but then
I was angry with my self, and loathed my self,
and thought God will not forgive me my sins.
For when I had been abroad in the woods I
would be very angry, and would lye unto men,
and I could not find the way how to be a good
man: then I beleeved your teaching, That when
good men die, the Angels carry their souls to
God; but evil men dying, they go to Hell, and
perish for ever. I thought this a true saying,
and I promised to God, to pray to God aa long

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 205

as I live. I had a little grief in my heart five
years ago for my sins: but many were my
prides; sometime I was angry with my self, and
pityed my self; but I thought God would not
pardon such a proud heart as mine is: I beleeve
that Christ would have me to forsake my anger;
I beleeve that Christ hath redeemed us, and I
am glad to hear those words of God; and I de-
sire that I might do al the good waies of God,
and that I might truly pray unto God: I do now
want Graces, and these Christ only teacheth us,
and only Christ hath wrought our redemption,
and he procureth our pardon for nil our sins;
and I beleeve that when beleevers dy, Gods
Angels carry them to Heaven; but I want faith
to beleeve the Word of God, and to open my
Eyes, and to help me to cast away all sins; and
Christ hath deserved for me eternall life: I have
deserved nothing my self: Christ hath deserved,
all, and giveth me faith to beleeve it.”

“CONFESSION OF MONEQUASSUN, THE
SCHOOLMASTER.

I Confess my sorrow for all my sins against
God, and before men: When I first heard in-
struction, I beleeved not, but laughed at it, and

VOL. III. 18

206 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

scorned praying to God; afterward, when we
were taught at Cohannet (that is the place where
he lived) I still hated praying, and I did think
of running away, because I cared not for praying
to God; but afterwards, because I loved to dwell
at that place, I would not leave the place, and
therfore I thought I will pray to God, because I
would still stay at that place, therefore I prayed
not for the love of God, but for love of the place
I lived in; after that I desired a little to learn
the Catechisme on the Lecture daies, and I did
learn the ten Commandements, and after that, all
the points in the Catechisme; yet afterwards I
cast them all away again, then was my heart
filled with folly, and my sins great sins, after-
wards by hearing, I began to fear, because of my
many sins, lest the wise men should come to
know them, and punish me for them; and then
again I thought of running away because of my
many sins: But' after that I thought I would
pray rightly to God, and cast away my sins;
then I saw my hypocricy, because I did ask
some questions, but did not do that which I
knew: afterword I considered of my question,
and thought I would pray to God, and would
consider of some other Question, and I asked
this Question, How should I get Wisdom ? and
the Answer to it did a little tum my heart from

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 207

sin, to seek after God; and I then considered
that the Word of God was good; then I prayed
to God because of the Word of God. The next
Lecture day you taught that word of God, If any
man lack Wisdom, let him ask it of God, who
giveth, freely to them that ask him, and upbraid-
eth no man, James, 1:5. Then again a little
my heart was turned after God, the Word also
said, Repent, mourn, and believe in Jesus Christ:
this also helped me on. Then you taught, That
he that beleeveth not Christ, and repenteth not of
sin, they are foolish and wicked; and because
they beleeve not, they shall perish: then I
thought my self a fool, because I beleeved not
Christ, but sinned every day, and after I heard
the Word greatly broke the Word. But after-
ward I heard this promise of God, Who ever re-
penteth and beleeveth in Christ, God will for-
give him all his sins, he shall not perish; then I
thought, that as yet, I do not repent, and be-
leeve in Christ: then I prayed to God, because
of this his Promise; and then I prayed to God,
for God and for Christ his sake: after that again
I did a little break the Word of Christ. And
then I heard some other words of God, which
shewed me my sins, and my breakings of Gods
word; and sometimes I thought God and Christ
would forgive me, because of the promise to

208 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

them that beleeve in Christ, and repent of sin, I
thought I did thot which God , spake in the
Promise. Then being coiled to confess, to pre-
pare to make a Church at Natick, I loved Co-
hannet; but after hearing this instruction, That
we should not only be Hearers, but Doers of the
Word, then my heart did fear. And afterward
hearing that in Matthew, Christ saw two breth-
ren mending their Nets, he said, Follow me and
I will make you, Fishers of men, presently they
followed Christ; and when I heard this, I feared,
because I was not willing· to follow Christ to
Natick; they followed Christ at his Word, but
I did not, for now Christ saith to us, follow Me:
then I was much troubled, and considered of this
Word of God. Afterward I heard another word,
the blind men cried after Christ and said, Have
mercy on us thou Son of David, but after they
came to Christ he called them, and asked them,
What shall I do for you? they said, Lord open
our eyes; then Christ had pity on them, and
opened their eyes, and they followed Christ;
when I heard this, n1y heart was troubled, then
I prayed to God and Christ, to open mine eyes,
and if Christ open my eyes, then I shall rejoyce
to follow Christ: then I considered of both these
Scriptures, and I a little saw that I must follow
Christ. And now my heart desireth to make

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 209

confession of what I know or God, and of my-
self, and of Christ: I beleeve that there is only
one God, and that he made and ruleth all the
World, and that he the Lord, giveth us al good
things: I know that God giveth every day all
good mercies, life, and health, and all; I have
not one good thing, but God it is that giveth it
me, I beleeve that God at first made man like
God, holy, wise, righteous; but the first man
sinned, for God promised him, If thou do my
Commandements, thou shalt line, and thy Chil-
dren; but if thou sin, thou shalt die, thou and
thy children; this Covenant God made with the
first man. But the first man did not do the
Commandements of God he did break Gods
Word, he beleeved Satan; and now I am full of
sin, because the first man brought sin; dayly I
am full of sin in my heart: I do not dayly re-
joyce in Repentance, because Satan worketh
dayly in my heart, and opposeth Repentance,
and all good Works; day and night my heart is
full of sin. I beleeve that Jesus Christ was born
of the Virgin Mary; God promised her she
should bear a Son, and his Name should be
JESUS, because he shall deliver his people
from their sins: And when Christ came to
preach, he said, Repent, because the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand; again Christ taught, Except

18*

210 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

ye repent and become as a little child, ye shall
not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; there-
fore humble your selves like one of these little
children, and great shall be your Kingdom in
Heaven. Again Christ said, Come unto me all
ye that are weary and heavy laden with sin, and
I will give you rest: take up my Cross and
Yoak, learn of me for I am meek, and ye shall
find rest to your souls, for my yoak is easie and
burden light: these are the Words of Christ
and I know Christ he is good, but my works are
evil: Christ his words are good, but I am not
humble; but if we be humble and beleeving in
Christ, he pardons all our sins. I now desire
to beleeve in Jesus Christ, because of the word
of Christ. that I may be converted and become
as a little Child. I confess my sins before God,
and before Jesus Christ this day; now I desire
all my sins may be pardoned; I now desire re-
pentance in my heart, and ever to beleeve in
Christ; now I lift up my heart to Christ, and
trust him with it, because I beleeve Christ died
for us, for all our sins, and deserved for us eter-
nal life in Heaven, and deserved pardon for all
our sins. And now I give my soul to Christ
because he hath redeemed: I do greatly love,
and like repentance in my heart, and I love to
beleeve in Jesus Christ, and my heart is broken

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 211

by repentance: al these things I do like wel of,
that they may be in my heart, but because
Christ hath all these to give, I ask them of him
that he may give me repentance, and faith in
Christ, and therefore I pray and beseech Christ
dayly for repentance and faith; and other good
wales I beg of Christ dayly to give me: and I
pray to Christ for al these gifts and graces to
put them in my heart: and now I greatly thank
Christ for all these good gifts which he hath
given me. I know not any thing, nor can do
any thing that is a good work: even my heart
is dark dayly in what I should do, and my soul
dyeth because of my sins, and therefore I give
my soul to Christ, because my soul is dead in
sin, and dayly doth commit sin; in my heart I
sin, and all the members of my body are sinful.
I beleeve Jesus Christ is ascended to Heaven
through the clouds, and he will come again from
Heaven: Many saw Christ go up to Heaven,
and the Angels said, even so he will come again
to judg all the world; and therefore I beleeve
Gods promise, That all men shall rise again
when Christ cometh again, then all shall rise,
and all their souls comes again because Christ
is trusted with them, and keeps their souls,
therefore I desire my sins may be pardoned;

212 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

and I beleeve in Christ; and ever so long as I
live, I will pray to God, and do all the good
waies he commandeth.”

“CONFESSIONS OF ROBIN SPEENE.

I was ashamed because you taught to pray to
God, and I did not take it up; I see God is an-
gry with me for all my sins, and he hath afflicted
me by the death of three of my children, and I
fear God is still angry, because great are my
sins, and I fear lest my children be not gone to
Heaven, because I am a great sinner, yet one of
my children prayed to God before it died, and
therefore my heart rejoyceth in that. I remem-
ber my Pawwawing [for he was a Pawwaw] my
lust, my gaming, and all my sins; I know them
by the Commandements of God, and God heareth
and seeth them all; I cannot deliver my self
from sin, therefore I do need Christ, because of
all my sins, I desire pardon, and I beleeve that
God calls all to come to Christ, and that he de-
livercth us from sin.”

“His Second Confession.

I have found out one word more: great are
my sins, and I do not know how to repent, nor

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 213

do I know the evil of my sins; only this one
word, now I confess I want Christ, this day I
want him; I do not truly beleeve nor repent: I
see my sin, and I need Christ, but I desire now
to be redeemed: and I now ask you this Ques-
tion What is Redemption? “I answered him,
“by shewing him our estate by Nature; and
“desert, the price which Christ paid for us, and
“how it is to be applied to every particular
“person; which done, he proceeded in his con-
fession thus: I yet cannot tell whether God hath
pardoned my sins, I forget the word of God;
but this I 'desire, that my sins may be pardoned,
but my heart is foolish, and a great part of the
Word stayeth not in my heart strongly. I de-
sire to cast all my sins out of my heart: but I
remember my sins, that I may get them par-
doned, I think God doth not yet hear my prayers
in this, because I cannot keep the Word of God,
only I desire to hear the Word, and that God
would hear me.”

“His Third Confession.

One word more I cal to mind, Great is my
sin! this saith my heart, I have found this sin,
when I first heard you teach, that all the world
from the rising to the sitting Sun should pray to
God, I then wondered at it, and thought, I being

214 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

a great sinner, how shal I pray to God; and
when I saw many come to the Meeting, I won-
dred at it: But now I do not wonder at that
work of God, and therefore I think that I do
now greatly sin: and now I desire again to
wonder at Gods Works, and I desire to rejoyce
in Gods good waies, Now I am much ashamed,
and fear because I have deserved eternal wrath
by my sins: my heart is evil, my heart doth
contrary to God: and this I desire, that I may
be redeemed, for I cannot help myself, but only
Jesus Christ hath done al this for me, and I de-
serve no good, but I beleeve Christ both deserved
all for us: and I give my self unto Christ, that
he may save me, because he knoweth eternal
life, and can give it; I cannot give it to my self,
therefore I need Jesus Christ, my heart is full
of evil thoughts; and Christ only can keep my
soul from them, because he hath paid for my
deliverance from them.”

“CONFESSION OF ANTONY.

Another who made his Confession is named
Antony, upon whom the Lord was pleased
the last Winter to lay an heavy stroke; for he
and another Indian being at work sawing of

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 215

Board, and finishing the Peece, they laid it so
short, and the Rowl not so stedfast, insomuch
that this man being in the Pit directing to lay
the Piece, and the other above ordering there
of, it slipped down into the Pit upon this mans
bend, brake his neather Chap in two, and
cracked his Skull, insomuch that he was taken
up half dead, and almost strangled with blood;
and being the last day of the week at night I
had no word until the Sabbath day, then I
presently sent a Chyrurgion, who took a dis-
creet order with him; and God so blessed his
indeavors, as that he is now well again,
blessed be the Lord: and whereas I did fear
that such a blow in their Labor might dis-
courage them from Labor, I have found it by
Gods blessing otherwise; yea this man hath
performed a great part of the sawing of our
Meeting-House, and is now sawing upon the
School-house, and his recovery is an estab-
lishment of them to go on; yea, and God
blessed this blow, to help on the Work of
Grace in his soul; as you shall see in his
Confession, which followeth.

BEFORE I prayed to God 1 alwaies committed
sin, but I do not know all my sins, I know but a
little of the sins I have committed, therefore I

216 LIFE JOHN ELIOT.

thought I could not pray to God, because I knew
not al my sins before I prayed to God, and since
I heard of praying to God: formerly when the
English did bid me pray unto God I hated it,
and would go out of their houses, when they
spake of such things to me. I had no delight
to hear any thing of Gods Word, but in every
thing I sinned; in my speeches I sinned, and
every day I broke the Commands of God. After
I heard of praying to God, that Waban and my
two brothers prayed to God, yet then I desired
it not, but did think of running away; yet I
feared if I did run away some wicked men
would kill me, but I did not fear God. After
when you said unto me, pray, my heart thought,
I will pray; yet again I thought, I cannot pray
with my heart, and no matter for praying with
words only: but when I did pray, I saw more
of my sins; yet I did but only see them, I could
not be aware of them, but still I did commit
them: and after I prayed to God, I was still full
of lust, and then a little I feared. Sometimes I
was sick, and then I thought God was angry,
and then I saw that I did commit all sins: then
one of my brothers died, and then my heart was
broken, and after him another friend, and again
my heart was broken: and yet after all this I
broke my praying to God, and put away God,

218 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

leeved that word, That we must shortly appear
before Jesus Christ; then I did greatly fear lest
if I beleeved not, I should perish for ever. When
I was neer death, I prayed unto God, Oh Lord
give me life, and I will pray to God so long as I
live and I said, I will give my self, soul, and body
to Christ: after this, God gave me health, and
then I thought, truly, God in Heaven is merci-
ful; then I much grieved, that I knew so little
of Gods word. And now sometimes I am
angry, and then I fear because I know God
seeth it; and I fear, because I promised God
when I was almost dead, that if he giveth me
life, I will pray so long as I live; I fear lest I
should break this promise to God. Now l de-
sire the pardon of all my sins, and I beg faith in
Christ, and I desire to live unto God, so long as
I live; I cannot myself get pardon, but I dayly
commit sin, and break Gods Word, but I look to
Christ for pardon.”

“CONFESSION OF EPHRAIM.

ALL the daies I have lived, I have been in a
poor foolish condition, I cannot tell nil fly sins,
all my great sins, I do not see them. When I
first heard of praying to God, I could not sleep

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 219

quietly, I was so troubled, ever I thought I would
forsake the pin CC because of praying to God, my
life hath been like as if I had been a mad man,
Last yeer I thought I would leave all my sins,
yet I see I do not leave off sinning to this day;
I now think I shall never be able to forsake my
sins. I think sometimes the Word of God is
false, yet I see there is no giving over that I
might follow sin, I must pray to God; I do not
truly in my heart repent, and I think that God
wil not forgive me my sins: every day my heart
sinneth, and how will Christ forgive such an
one? I pray but outwardly with my mouth, not
with my heart; I cannot of my self obtain par-
don of my sins: I cannot tell all the sins that I
have done if I should tell you an whol day to-
gether: I do every morning desire that my sins
may be pardoned by Jesus Christ; his my heart
saith, but yet I fear I cannot forsake my sins,
because I cannot see all my sins: I hear, That
if we repent and beleeve in Christ, all our sins
shall be pardoned, therefore I desire to leave off
my sins.
This poor Publican was the last which made
his Confession before I read them unto the
Elders, and the last of them I shall now
publish. I will shut up these Confessions
with the Confession (if I may so call it) or

220 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

rather with the Expression, and manifesta-
tion of faith, by two little Infants, of two
yeers old, and upward, under three yeers
of age when they died and departed out of
this world.

The Story is this,

This Spring. in the beginning of the yeer, 1652,
the Lord was pleased to afflict sundry of our
praying Indians with that grievous disease or
the Bloody-Flux, whereof some with great tor-
ments in their bowels died; among which were
two little Children of the age above-said, and at
that time both in one house, being together taken
with that disease. The first of these Children
in the extremities of its torments, lay crying to
God in these words, God and Jesus Christ, God
and Jesus Christ help me; and when they gave
it any thing to eat, it would greedily take it (as
it is usual at the approach of death) but first it
would cry to God, Oh God and Jesus Christ,
bless, it, and then it would take it: and in this
manner it lay calling upon God and Jesus Christ
untill it died: The mother of this Child also
died of that disease, at that time. The Father
of the Child told me this story, with great won-
derment at the grace of God, in teaching his
Child so to call upon God. The name of the

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 221

Father is Nishohkou, whose Confession you
have before.
Three or four daies after, another Child in the
same house, sick of the same disease, was (by a
divine hand doubtless) sensible of the approach
of death, (an unusual thing at that age) and
called to its Father, and said, Father, I am going
to God, several times repenting it, I am going
to God. The mother (as other mothers use to
do) had made for the Child a little Basket, a lit-
tle Spoon, and a little Tray: these things the
Child was wont to be greatly delighted withal
(as all Children will) theref ore in the extremity
of the torments, they set those things before it, a
little to divert the mind, and cheer the spirit:
but now, the child takes the Basket, and puts it
away, and said, I will leave my Basket behind
me, for I am going to God, I will leave my
Spoon and Tray behind me (putting them away)
for I am going to God: and with these kind of
expressions, the same night finished its course,
and died.
The Father of this child is named Robin
Speen, whose Confessions you have before, and
in one of them he maketh mention of this child
that died in Faith. When he related this story
to me, he said, He could not tell whether the

19*

222 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

sorrow for the death of his child, or the joy for
its faith were greater, when it died.
     These Examples are a testimony, That they
teach their children the knowledg and fear of
God, whom they now call upon; and also that
the Spirit of God co-worketh with their instruct-
tions, who teacheth by man, more than man is
able to do."
     Mr. Eliot says, ‘I have now finished all that I
purpose to publish at this time; the Lord give
them Acceptance in the hearts of his Saints, to
engage them the more to pray for them; and
Oh! that their judgings of themselves, and
breathings after Christ, might move others (that
have more means than they have, but as yet
regard it not) to do the like, and much more
abundantly.’
     A meeting of the Elders of the Churches was
requested by Mr. Eliot, as before stated, to give
advice in view of these Confessions, and upon
further personal examination of some of the In-
dians, as to the next step to be taken in organ-
izing the Indian Church. But Mr. E. says,
     “'There fell out a very great discouragement a
little before the time, which might have been a
scandall unto them, and I doubt not but Satan
intended it so; but the Lord improved it to stir

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 223

up faith and Prayer, and so turned it another
way: Thus it was. Three of the unsound sort
of such as are among them that pray unto God,
who are hemmed in by Relations; and other
means, to doe that which their hearts love not,
and whose Vices Satan improveth to scandalize
and reproach the better sort withall; while
many, and some good people are too ready to
say they are all alike. I say three of them had
gotten severall quarts or strong water, (which
sundry out of a greedy desire of a little gaine,
are too ready to sell unto them, to the offence
and grief of the better sort of Indians, and of the
godly English too)* and with these Liquors, did
not onely make themselves drunk, but got a
Child of eleven years of age, the Son of Tote-
swamp, whom his Father had sent for a little
Corne and Fish to that place near Watertowne
where they were. Unto this Child they first
gave too spoonfuls of Strong-water, which was
more then his head could bear; and another of
them put a Bottle, or such like Vessel to his
mouth, and caused him to drink till he was very
drunk; and then one of them domineered, and
said, Now we will see whether your Father will
punish us for drunkenness (for he is a Ruler
among them) seeing you are drunk with us for

* See the Memorial or Mr. Eliot to the General Court, on this
subject, Appendix L.

224      LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

company; and in this case lay the Child aboard
all night. They also fought, and had been sev-
erall times Punished formerly for Drunkennesse.
     When Toteswamp heard of this, it was a great
shame and breaking of heart unto him, and he
knew not what to doe. The rest of the Rulers
with him considered of the matter, they found a
complication of many sins together.
    1. The sin of Drunkennesse, and that after
many former Punishments for the same.
    2. A willful making of the Child drunk, and
exposing him to danger also.
    3. A degree of reproaching the Rulers.
    4. Fighting.
    Word was brought to me of it, a little before
I took Horse to goe to Natick to keep the Sab-
bath with them, being about ten dayes before the
appointed Meeting. The Tidings sunk my
spirit extreamly, I did judge it to be the greatest
frowne of God that ever I met withall in the
work, I could read nothing in it but displeasure,
I began to doubt about our intended work: I
knew not what to doe, the blacknesse of the
sins, and the Persons reflected on, made my
very heart faile me: For one of the offendors
(though least in the offence) was he that hath
been my Interpreter, whom I have used in 'I'rans-
lating a good part of the Holy Scriptures; and
in that respect I saw much of Satans venome,

     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.   225

and in God l saw displeasure. For this and
some other acts of Apostacy at this time, I had
thoughts or casting him off from that work, yet
now the Lord hath found a way to humble him.
But his Apostacy at this time was a great Triall,
and I did lay him by (or that day of our Exam-
ination, I used another in his room. Thus Satan Z
aimed at me in this their miscarrying; and
Toteswamp is a Principall man in the work, as
you shall have occasion to see anon God-willing.
     By some occasion our Ruling Elder and I be-
ing together, I opened the case unto him, and
the Lord guided him to speak some gracious
words or encouragement onto me, by which the
Lord did relieve my spirit; and so I committed
the matter and issue unto the Lord, to doe what
pleased him, and in so doing my soul was quiet
in the Lord. I went on my journey being the
6 day or the week; when I came at Natick, the
Rulers had then a Court about it. Soon after I
came there, the Rulers came to me with a
Question about this matter, they related the
whole businesse unto me with much trouble
and grief.
    Then Toteswamp spake to this purpose, I am
greatly grieved about these things, and now
God tryeth me whether I love Christ or my Child
best. They say, They will try me; but I say,

226 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

God will try me. Christ saith, He that loveth
father, or mother; or wife, or Child, better than
me, is not worthy of me. Christ saith, I must
correct my Child; if I should refuse to doe that;
I should not love Christ. God bid Abraham kill
his Son, Abraham loved God, and therefore he
would have done it, had not God with-held him,
God saith to me, onely punish your Child, and
how can I love God, if I should refuse to doe
that? These things he spake in more words,
and much affection, and not with dry eyes: Nor
could I refraine from teares to hear him. When
it was said, The Child was not so guilty of the
sin, as those that made him drunk; he said.
That he was guilty of sin, in that he feared not
sin, and in that he did not believe his counsells
that he had often given him, to take heed of evill
company; but he had believed Satan and sinners
more then him, therefore he needed to be pun-
ished. After other such like discourse, the Ru-
lers left me, and went unto their businesse,
which they were about before I came; which
they did bring unto this conclusion, and judge-
ment, They judged the three men to sit in the
stocks a good space of time, and, thence to be
brought to the whipping-Post, & have each of
them twenty lashes. The boy to be put in the
stocks a little while, and the next day his father

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 227

was to whip him in the School, before the Chil-
dren there; all which Judgment was executed.
When they came to be whipt, the Constable
fetcht them one after another to the Tree (which
they make use of instead of a Post) where they
all received their Punlshments: which done,
the Rulers spake thus, one of them said, The
Punishments for sin are the Commandements of
God, and the worke of God, and his end was, to
doe them good, and bring them to repentance.
And upon that ground he did in more words
exhort them to repentance, and amendment of
life. When he had done, another spake unto
them to this purpose, You are taught, Cate-
chisme, that the wages of sin are all miseries and
calamities in this life, and also death and eternall
damination in hell. Now you feele some smart
as the fruit of your sin, and this is to bring you
to repentance, that so you may escape the rest.
And in more words he exhorted them to repent-
ance. When he had done, another spake to this
purpose, Heare all yee people (turning himselfe to
the People who stood round about, I think not
lesse then two hundred, small and great) this is
the Commandement of the Lord, that thus it
should be done unto sinners; and therefore let
all take warning by this, that you commit not
such sins, least you incur these Punishments.

228 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

And with more words he exhorted the People.
Others of the Rulers spake also, but some things
spoken I understood not, and some things slippt
from me: But these which I have related re-
mained with me.
     When I returned to Roxbury, I related these
things to our Elder, to whom I had before re-
lated the sin, and my grief: who was much
affected to hear it, and magnified God. He said
also, That their sin was but a Transient act,
which had no Rule, and would vanish! But
these Judgements were an ordinance of God,
and would remaine, and doe more good every
way, then their sin could doe hurt, telling me
what cause I had to be thankfull for such an is-
sue: Which I therefore relate, because the Lord
did speak to my heart, in this exigent, by his
words.”
     This difficulty being thus settled, the time
came for the meeting of the Elders; Mr. Eliot
observes,
      “When the assembly was met for Examination
of the Indians, and ordered, I declared the end and
Reason of this Meeting, and therefore de-
clared, That any one, in due order, might have
liberty to propound any Questions for their sat-
isfaction. Likewise, I requested the Assembly,
That if any one doubted of the Interpretations

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 229

that should be given of their answers, that they
would Propound their doubt, and they should
have the woods scanned and tried by the Inter-
preters, that so all things may be done most
clearly. For my desire was to be true to Christ
to their soules, and to the Churches: And the
trying out of any of their Answers by the In-
terpreters, would tend to the satisfaction of such
as doubt, as it fell out in one Answer which they
gave; the Question was, How they knew the
Scriptures to be the word of God? The final
Answer was, Because they did find that it did
change their hearts, and wrought in them
wisedome and humility. This Answer being
Interpreted to the Assembly, my Brother Mahu
doubted, especially of the word. [Hohpooonk]
signifying, Humility, it was scanned by the In-
terpreters, and proved to be right, and he rested
satisfied therein. I was purposed my selfe to
have written the Elders Questions, and the In-
dians Answers, but I was so imployed in pro-
pounding to the Indians the Elders Questions,
and in returning the Indians Answers, as that
it was not possible for me to write unlesse I had
caused the Assembly to stay upon it, which had
not been fitting; therefore seeing Mr. Walton,
writing, I did request him to write the Ques-
tions and Answers, and help me with a Copy of

VOL. III. 20

230 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

them, which I thank him, he did, a Copy whereof
I herewith send to be inserted in this place, on
which, this only I will animadvert, That the El-
ders in wisdom thought it not fit to ask them in
Catechisticall method strictly, in which way
Children might Answer. But that they might
try whether they understood what they said,
they traversed up and downe in Questions of
Religion, as here you see.

POSTSCRIPT.

LET the Reader take notice, That these ques-
tions were not propounded all to one man, but
to sundry, which is the reason that sometime
the same Questions are propounded againe
and againe, Also the number Examined
were about eight, namely, so many as might
be first called forth to enter into Church-
Covenant, if the Lord give opportunity.”

   We have a Catechism, entitled “The Exam-
ination of the Indians at Roxbury, the 13th day
of the 4th month, 1654. The following are
some of the questions and answers.
     Q. Have not some Indians many God?
     A. They have many Gods.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 231

      Q. How doe you know these Gods are no
Gods.
      A. Before the English came we knew not
but that they were Gods, but since they came
we know they are no Gods:
      Q. How doe you know the word of God is
Gods word?
      A. I believe the word that you teach us, was
spoken of God.
      Q. Why doe you believe it?
      A. Therefore I believe it to be the word of
God, because when we learn it, it teacheth our
hearts to be wise and humble.
      Q. Whether are not your sins, and the
temptations of Hobbomak more strong since, then
before you prayed to God?
      A. Before I prayed to God, I knew not what
Satans temptations were.
      Q. Doe you know now?
      A. Now I have heard what Satans tempta-
tions are.
      Q. What is a temptation of the Devill in
your heart, doe you understand what it is?
      A. Within my heart there are Hypocrisies,
which doe not appear without.
      Q. Whether doe not you find this a princi-
pall temptation from the wickednesse of your
heart, to drive you away from Christ, and not to

232 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

believe the gracious Promises in Jesus Christ?
Or whether when you find wickednesse in your
heart, you are not tempted that you cannot believe?
   A. My heart doth strongly desire to goe on
in sin, but this is a strong temptation, but Faith
is the work of Jesus Christ.
    Q. What doe you believe about the immor-
tality of the soule, and resurrection of the body?
doth the soule dye When the body dyeth?
    A. I believe, when the body of a good man
dyeth; the Angels carry his soule to heaven,
when a wicked man dyeth, the Devills carry his
soule to hell.
    Q. How long shall they be in that state?
    A. Untill Christ cometh to Judgement.
    Q. When Christ cometh to judge the world,
what then shall become of them?
    A. The dead bodies of all men shall rise
again.
    Q. Whether shall they ever dye any more?
    A. Good men shall never dye any more.
    Q. Whether doe you believe that these very
bodies of our shall rise againe?
    A. This body which rots in the earth, this
very body, God maketh it new.
    Q. Who is Jesus Christ?
    A. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, yet borne
man, and so both God and man.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 233

    Q. Why was Christ Jesus a man?
    A. That he might dye for us.
    Q. Why is Christ Jesus God?
    A. That his death might be of great value.
    Q. Why doe you say, Christ Jesus was a
man that he might dye, doe onely men dye?
    A. He dyed for our sins.
    Q. What reason or justice is there, that
Christ should dye for our sins?
    A. God made all the world, and man sinned,
therefore it was necessary Christ should dye to
carry men up to Heaven. God hath given unto
us his Son Jesus Christ, because of our sins.
      The Question being put to another for further
        Answer, his Answer was, That God so
        loved the world, that he gave his onely be-
        gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
        should not perish, but have everlasting life.
     Q. When you heare that Adam by his sin
deserved eternall death, and when you hear of
the grace of God sending Jesus to save you,
which of these break your heart most?
     A. Pardon of sin goeth deepest.

     With regard to the formation of the church,
one writer says;
     “This great and solemne work of calling up

20*

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 234

these poor Indians unto that that Gospel light and
beauty of visible Church-estate, having now
passed through a second-Tryall: In the former
whereof, they expressed what experience they
had found of Gods grace in their hearts; turning
them from dead works, to seek after the living
God, and salvation in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
In this second they have in some measure de-
clared how far the Lord hath let in the light of
the good knowledge of God into their soules,
and what tast they have of the Principles of
Religion, and doctrine of salvation. Now the
Question remaineth, What shall we further doe?
And when shall they enjoy the Ordinance, of
Jesus Chrilt in Church-state?
The work is very solemne, and the Ques-
tion needeth a solemne Answer. It is a great
matter to betrust those with the holy priviledges
of Gods house upon which the name of Christ
is so much called, who have so little knowledge
and experience in the wayes of Christ, so newly
come out of that great depth of darknesse, and
wild course of life; in such danger or polluting
and defiling the name of Christ among their
barbarous friends and Countrey-men; and un-
der so many doubts and jealousies of many peo-
ple; and having not yet stood in the wayes of
Christ so long, as to give sufficient proof and

       LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.     235

experience of their stedfastnesse in their new
begun profession. Being also the first Church
gathered among them, it is like to be a pattern
and president of after proceedings, even unto
following Generations. Hence it is very need-
full that this proceeding of ours at first, be with
all care and wearinesse guided, for the most ef-
fectuall advancement of the holinesse and hon-
our of Jesus Christ among them.
     “Upon such like grounds as these, though I
and some others know more of the sincerity of
some of them, than others doe, and are better
satisfied with them: Yet because I may be in a
temptation on that hand, I am well content to
make slow hast in this matter, remembring that
word of God, Lay hands suddenly on no man.
Gods works among men doe usually goe on
slowly, and he that goeth slowly, doth usually
goe most surely, especially when he goeth by
counsell. Sat cito si sat bene;* the greater proof
we have of them, the better approbation they
may obtain, at last, Besides, we having had
one publick meeting about them already this
summer, it will be difficult to compaese another,
for we have many other great occasions, which
may hinder the same, and it is an hard matter
to get Interpreters together to attend such a
work, they living so remote. The dayes also will

    * Fast enough, if well enough.

236 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

soon grow short, and the nights cold, which will
be an hindrance in the attendance unto the ac-
complishment of that work, which will mostl fitly
be done at Natick.
“But above all other Reasons this is greatest,
that they living in sundry Towns and places re-
mote from each other, and, labourers few to take
care of them, it is necessary that some of them-
selves should be trained up, and peculiarly
instructed, unto whom the care of ruling and
ordering or them in the affaires or Gods house
may be committed, in the absence of such as
look after their instruction. So that this is now
the thing we desire to attend, for the comfort of
our little Sister that hath no breasts, that such
may be trained up, and prepared, unto whom
the charge of the rest may be committed in the
Lord. And upon this ground we make the
slower hast to accomplish this work among
them. Mean while I hope the Commissioners
will afford some encouragement for the further-
ance of the instruction of some of the most godly
and able among them, who, may be a speciall
man tier helpfull unto the rest, in due order and
season.
“And thus have I briefly set down our pres-
ent state in respect, of our Ecclesiasticall pro-
cedings. I beg the prayers of the good people

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 237

of the Lord, to be particularly present at the
Throne of Grace; in these matters, according as
you have hereby a particular Information how
our condition is. And for me also, who am the
most unfit in humane reason for such a work as
this, but my soule desireth to depend and live
upon the Lord Jesus, and fetch all help, grace,
mercy, assistance, and supply from him. And
herein I doe improve his faithfull Covenant and
Promises, and in perticular, the Lord doth cause
my soule to live upon that word of his, Psal.
37:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, wherein I have food, rayment,
and all necessaries for my selfe and children
(whom I have dedicated unto the Lord, to serve
him in this work of his, if he will please to
accept of them) and this supply I live upon in
these rich words of gracious Promise, verse 3.
Trust in the Lord, and doe good, dwell in the
Land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Herein also I find supply of grace to believe
the conversion of these poor Indians, & that not
only in this present season, in what I doe
already see, but in the future also, further then
by mine eye or reason I can see. Which sup-
ply of grace, I live upon in those words of his
gracious Promise, which I apply and improve in
this particular respect, verse 4. Delight thy-

238         LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

selfe also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the
desires of thy heart.
    “Herein also I find supply of grace to believe,
that they shall be in Gods season, which is the
fittest, brought into Church Estate; faith fetch-
ing this particular blessing out of the rich
Fountaine of those gracious words of Promise,
Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in
him, and he shall bring it to passe.
    “Herein also my soule is strengthened and
quieted; to stay upon the Lord, and to be sup-
ported against all suspitious jealousies, hard
speeches, and unkindnesses of men, touching
the sincerity and reality of this work, and about
my carriage or matters, and supply herein.
Which grace my soule receiveth by a particular
improvement of that rich treasury of the Prom-
ise in these words, verse 6. And he shall bring
forth thy righteousnesse as the light, and thy
judgement as the noon day. And herein likewise
I find supply of grace, to wait patiently for the
Lords time, when year after year, and time after
time, I meet with disappointments. Which
grace I receive from the commanding force of
that gracious Promise, verse 7. Rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for him, fret not thy
selfe, either for one cause, or another. Thus I
live, and thus I labor, here I have supply, and

     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.   239

here is my hope, I beg the help of prayers, that
I may still so live and labour in the Lords work,
and that I may so live and dye.”
In 1670, the number of men and women in
full communion at Natick was between forty
and fifty, and more than three hundred and fifty
had renounced their savage practices and open
sins, and gave heed to the instructions of the
Gospel.
    Their meetings were notified by the drum.
In their assemblies they were attentive and rev-
erent. A native teacher commenced worship
with prayer, and the English Christains assisted
in the business of instruction. There, as at
other times, and in other places among civilized
people God poured out his Spirit upon the young.
Several cases of hopeful piety in young children
are mentioned. The most interesting of them
have already been given.
     Mr. Eliot having made a grammar of the In-
dian tongue, and a catechism, was proceeding
with his Indian Bible. In 1649, he said it was
his earnst wish to translate some parts of the
Scriptures for the Indians. He probably labored
at this work, at intervals, for twelve years, and
he was at least forty-five years of age when he
began it.

240     LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

   It should be remembered that tis work, un-
like the same employment of our foreign mis-
sionaries at their first arrival at new stations,
was wholly in addition to his labors as Pastor of
another people,--the congregation at Roxbury.
It was of no direct use to him in his ministerial
work, any farther than investigation and study
is always profitable to the mind. It was a labor
superadded to the cares and toil or his pastoral
and ministerial office.
    A man who has a taste, for languages is gener-
ally repaid for the labor of acquiring them, by
the stores of learning which they contain. Cato
learned Greek at the age of eighty, and the lit-
erary world mention it to his praise, But here
is a man learning a language which has no lit-
erature. No tragic or heroic muse had left her
inspired strains in it. No beautiful old ballads
or legendary songs repaid his labor,--no Cant-
erbury Tales, or Children in the Wood, or Chevy
Chase, or Fairy Queen hymns of devotion,
nor martial songs; the language could only
whoop and powaw; the great word, gathering
subjunctives and adjuncts into itself, like a
crowded wigwam, was savagely ignorant of the
graces, or the concise, vigorous expressions of
some barbarous tongues, and Eliot's researches
into it were like digging, as the Plymouth set-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 241

tlers did, into the mounds for corn, and finding
nothing but skulls. But nothing could repress
the ardor of his benevolent mind. He was de-
termined that the Indians should have the word
of God in their own tongue, and the work drew
near to its accomplishment.
     But how could it ever be printed? His slen-
der salary could not pay for it; the planters
could not subscribe an adequate sum. In a let-
ter to England in 1651, he says, with much
sorrow, “I have no hope to see the Bible print-
ed in my days.”
    The Society for Propagating the Gospel came
to his help.* In September 1661, the New Tes-
tament in the Indian tongue was published at
Cambridge. Three years after this, the Old
Testament was added, and the whole Bible,
with a Catechism and the Psalms of David in
metre, was thus given to the Aborigines of this
desert, in their own tongue, in forty years after
the settlement of the country.
     This was the first Bible printed on this Con-
tinent. It was printed at Cambridge, by Sam-
uel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. A copy
handsomely bound, was sent to King Charles II.,
and the Rev. Richard Baxter says of it, “Such
a work and fruit of a plantation was never be-

* See Appendix E.

VOL. III. 21

246 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

Peter Thacher, the well accomplished and in-
dustrious Mr. Grindal Rawson, all of them hard
at work, to tum these poor creatures from dark-
ness to light, and from Satan unto God. In
Plymouth we have the most active Mr. Samuel
Treat laying out himself to save this genera-
tion, and there is one Mr. Tupper, who uses
his laudable endeavours for the instruction of
them.
“’Tis my relation to him* that causes me to
defer unto the last place the mention of Mr.
John Cotton, who hath addressed the Indians in
their own language with some dexterity. He
hired an Indian after the rate of twelve pence
per day, for fifty days, to teach him the Indian
tongue; but his knavish tutor having received
his whole pay too soon, ran away before twenty
days were out; however, in this time he had
profited so far that he could quickly preach unto
the natives.”
Two Indians from Martha's Vineyard were
entered at Harvard College, Their names were
Joel and Caleb. Joel was lost on his voyage
from Boston to Nantucket just before taking his
degree. Caleb was graduated, but soon died of

* Cotton Mather's mother was the daughter of Mr. Cotton.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 247

consumption at Charlestown. His name now
stands on the College Catalogue in this form:
“1665, Caleb Cheesehahteaumuck, Indus,” He
composed a Latin and Greek Elegy on the
death of an eminent minister, and subscribed
them, “Cheesehahteaumuck, Senior Sophista.”

248 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

CHAPTER VII.

Disturbance of Missionary efforts. Philip's War. Removal of the
Indians to Deere Isle. Return. Conclusion of History of Mis-
sionary efforts among the Indians of this neighborhood. Reflec-
tions.

CIVILIZATION and the influence of the Gospel,
however, had their limits. The Narraganset
Indians, situated between the Connecticut and
Plymouth Colonies, refused the Gospel, and the
benevolent intentions of the English. King
Philip, the famous warrior of Mount Hope, (now
Bristol) whose name was terrible to our fore-
fathers, scorned the doctrines of the cross. Mr.
Eliot once had an interview with him, explained
the way of salvation, and exhorted him to re-
pent. The Indian chieftain rose, took hold of
Mr. Eliot's button, and told him, that he cared
no more for his Gospel than he did for that but-
ton.
The Indians under Philip were growing jeal-
ous of English encroachments upon their hunting
fields. Petty depredations were made by the
Indians upon the English settlements, then fol-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 249

lowed a summons to court, which, in process of
time, became exceedingly annoying to proud,
untamed savages. They had bartered their
lands for English implements and toys; the
tools and the toys were gone, end the savage
could not be satisfied to abide by a paper, call it
treaty, bond, or contract, on which he had
scratched his mark. He sighed for his old do-
mains; the waves of civilization were coming
round him like a flood; his people were artfully
crowded by the English into narrow inlets be-
tween the settlements, that they might be
watched on all sides.
King Philip was summoned to Court in 1674,
for some offence committed by his tribe. The
informer was murdered by the angry savages.
The murderers were hanged by the English.
The massacre of eight or nine of the English at
Swansey was the consequence. Philip wept
when he heard that the blood of a white man
had been shed. The Colonists began to arm,
and a universal panic prevailed, The supersti-
tion of those days added much to the general
terror. Signs in the heavens were reported to
have been seen, a scalp on the disc of the moon
in an eclipse; an Indian bow was imprinted on
the sky. Troops of horses were heard rushing
through the air. The horrors of an Indian war

250      LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

made their faces pale and their hearts faint.
The scenes at Bloody Brook, the burning of
Lancaster, Medfield, Brookfield, Weymouth,
Groton, Marlborough, the ambushments rising
on the congregation as they returned from pub-
lic worship, the massacre of wives and children
at home, and the scalping of husbands and
brothers in the field, roused the colonies of
Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to an
exterminating war.
    It is easy to see that' the communities of pray-
ing Indians could not escape the influence of the
general excitement against the Indians. Some
of them were accused, justly or unjustly, of fa-
voring the designs of the enemy. The Colo-
nists were all the time afraid that the instinctive
love of war and carnage in the Indian bosom
would break through the restraints of religion,
and that all which had been done for the Indians
would be only a qualification of them us more
successful traitors and expert butchers.
    On the other hand, King Philip was jealous
of the praying Indians. He used every means
of persuasion and fear to enlist them on his side.
Their situation was trying in the extreme. In
the excited state of mind which an Indian war
created among the English, a war on the part of
the savages or stratagem, and treachery, it was

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 251

natural that the Christian Indians should be
trusted and reared. Some of them enlisted with
the English and did good service. and some de-
serted to Philip.
    In 1675, a number of the Christian Indians
were brought to Boston on a charge of being
concerned in a murder at Lancaster. Mr. Eli-
ot and his friends interposed to save them, and
succeeded in showing that the accusation was
false and malicious. In so doing, they incurred
the popular resentment, and were suspected and
accused of bad motives and treasonable conduct.
     The feelings of the people were now so un-
reasonable that the worst consequences to the
praying Indians were apprehended. In this state
or things the General Court, as a means of pro-
tection to themselves and to the Indians, passed
an order that the Natick Indians should be re-
moved to Deer Island, in Boston harbor, between
four and five miles from shore. They came to
the place called the Pines, near Cambridge, on
Charles River, and were thence conveyed by
water to Deer Island. Mr. Eliot met them at
the Pines, and endeavored to soothe and cheer
them. He was then seventy years old. One
might question whether he or the Indians suf-
fered most in their removal.
   A party or Indians had fired a barn at Chelms-

252 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

ford. The English imputed it to the praying
Indians at Tewksbury. A party of the English
went to their wigwams, called them out and shot
one lad, and wounded several women and chil-
dren. The murderers were tried, but the jury
were overawed by the public sentiment and
cleared them. The Tewksbury Indians fled
into the wilderness; messengers were sent to
them inviting them to return, but they gave this
answer: We are not sorry for what we leave
behind, but we are sorry that the English have
driven us from praying to God, and from our
leader. We did begin to understand a little of
praying to God. When the winter season came,
their sufferings forced them back to their wig-
wams, and the English endeavored in various
ways to atone for the injuries they had suf-
fered.
The Stoughton Indians, for some suspicion,
were also removed to Deer Island, and the whole
number there amounted to five hundred. Mr.
Eliot and his friends visited them and found
them patient and meek; exhibiting the true in-
fluence of the Gospel in a satisfactory degree.
But they were exposed to want and suffering of
various kinds. The ill-treatment of other com-
munities of Indians followed in rapid succession,
and it was in vain that they sought in moments

         LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.     253

of contention, to repair the injuries which they
had inflicted. One party of Indians, for exam-
ple, had been taken by a Narraganset Sachem,
and had escaped, and were wandering in the
woods, when an English scouting party met
them, taking from them, among other things, a
pewter cup which Mr. Eliot bad given them for
their communion service, and which they had
kept and carried with them with the reverence
of a Jew for his sacred vessels of gold and
silver. This party were also carried to Deer
Island.
    Philip, the terror of the English Colonies on
this continent, was finally destroyed. The war-
subsiding. the Deer Island Indians. with the
permission of the General Court, and by the
funds of the society in England for propagating
the Gospel, were removed to Cambridge, and
were permitted to choose their places of settle-
ment. Some of them went to the various falls
of Charles River, some to Brush Hill in Milton,
some settled at Nonantum, and many of them
went to Natick.
      But the efforts to Christianize the Indians
were never resumed with the interest and zeal
which were formerly felt. On the part of the
English, there was conscience or wrong, and on

VOL. III. 22

254 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

the part of the Indians a remembrance or injus-
tice, and thus a breach was made between them
which was never healed. Some or the Indians
had been made slaves. King Philip's wife and
son had been sold in the West Indies.* Mr.
Eliot followed with his prayers and efforts those
of his Christian Indians who had been sold into
bondage. He wrote to the celebrated and hon-
orable Robert Boyle to use his efforts in redeem-
ing some who had been left at Tangier.
By various means the praying towns had been
reduced in 1694, to four. The tribes have dwin-
dled and finally disappeared, till a few years
since one poor hut in Natick, inhabited by a
family of Indian and Negro blood, and the grave-
stone of Daniel Takawambait in the stone wall,
were the most prominent of the memorials
which they have left behind them. Fragments
of their language are imperishably associated
with many places and scenes throughout the
land. The rural retreat, the new town, the
gallant ship, are emulous of their names; while
the tavern sign, the bank note, the omnibus,
and the tobacconist, grace themselves with their
faces and implements. The New England poet,

* See Appendix, M.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 255

historian, and orator, draw thrilling incidents
from Mount Hope and Bloody Brook, and the
Christian and the philanthropist will enshrine
the names of Nonantum and Natick. West-
ward and still westward, the New England
tribes have receded. Civilization has had more
repulsion and injury for the savage than Christ-
ianity has been able to overcome. There is a
law of progress in the affairs of nations ex-
pressed in the prophetic language of the patriarch
Noah; “God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall
dwell in the tents of Shem.” The savage
retreats before the civilized man, and while we
mourn over the ruin or individual tribes, we
cannot but stand in awe or that resistless meas-
ure of God's providence by which he is forcing
the Caucasian race to fill the earth, and suffer-
ing uncivilized nations to melt away like the
snow in spring.
But that same vigorous faith which brought
the Pilgrims here as missionaries to the Indians,
has followed the red man in his wanderings
over this vast continent. The names of David
Brainard, Samuel Kirkland, and Gideon Black-
burn, are identified with the history of Indian
missions. The American Board has pursued
the work of evangelising them with much suc-

256 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

cess. The history of the Cherokees, the moun-
tainears of America, is of itself a tale or romantic
and thrilling interest. The sketches of the
present North American Indians by Mr. Catlin,
in his valuable work, show that a large field for
missionary effort on this continent is yet spread
before the American churches.
When the workmen were digging for the
foundation of some new houses at the corner of
Tremont and Boylston streets, in Boston, sever-
al years ago, they found the skeleton of an
Indian. He had been buried on his side, re-
clining, on his arm, and was found in that
posture. Christian faith and hope, mingled
with a little fancy, would fain lead us to hail
this incident as a sign that the Indian race are
not yet recumbent in hopeless degradation; that
though seemingly buried in the great wilderness,
they are buried in the posture of rising. Many
interesting recollections, and our natural feel-
ings towards an oppressed people, make us wish
that this was more than fancy, and, as the Indian
on the seal of the Massachusetts colony had a
passage of Scripture proceeding from his mouth,
Come over and help us, would we gladly put
another passage into the mouth of that resurrect-
tion Indian above mentioned, making him say,

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 257

with prophetic ecstasy, as he looks towards
Nonantum and surveys the scenes of his ancient,
and apparently lost race, “Thy dead men shall
live, together with my dead body shall they
arise; awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust,
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the
earth shall cast out her dead.”

258 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Eliot's avowal of republicanism, and his retraction of it. His
   connection with the controvera1 about Mrs. Hutchinson. Richard
   Baxter's Testimony about Mr. Eliot. Roman Catholics instructing t
   the Indians. Mr. Eliot. Close of Mr. Eliot.'s life. Conclusion.

Two events in the life of Mr. Eliot must neces-
sarily be noticed in giving a complete account of
him. One is the publication and subsequent
retraction of a book called the Christian Com-
mon wealth, and the other is his connection with
the controversy raised by that notorious woman,
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson.
Mr. Eliot wrote a book about the year 1650,
called the Christian Commonwealth. It was
carried to England in manuscript and printed.
In 1660, the Governor and Council of Massa-
chusetts condemned this book as being “full of
seditious principles and notions in relation to all
established governments in the Christian world,
especially against the government established in
their native country.”
Mr. Eliot wrote an acknowledgment of error
as the author of the book, and presented his re-

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 259

cantation to the General Court. He speaks in
it of Cromwell and his friends as “the late in-
novators” in the government of Great Britain,
and of the monarchy as restored under Charles
II., “as not only a lawful but eminent form of
government.” The book was suppressed, and
Mr. Eliot's recantation was published through
the colony.
This incident has been considered as reflect
ing on Mr. Eliot's character for discretion, or
for decision. The book does not survive in this
country to speak for itself. The facts in the
case seem to be that during the success of Crom-
well, Mr. Eliot composed his book in accordance
with what seemed to be the tendency in Eng-
land towards a settled republican form of gov-
ernment. But upon the restoration of Charles
II., the provincial government of Massachusetts
felt in duty bound to show their allegiance to
the crown by protesting against the sentiments
of a book which favored republicanism. How
often it is the case that success is regarded as
settling the question of right. Had Cromwell's
plan succeeded, the Massachusetts government
would not have felt obliged to condemn Mr.
Eliot's book. We may perhaps reflect upon
him for not maintaining and defending the
principles of his book; but to have done so

260 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

would have been treason, seeing that monarchy
had again become the established form of gov-
ernment in the mother country. Mr. Eliot,
perhaps, felt that it was right for him to find
reasons for that permanent change in the gov-
ernment of Great Britain which in the provi-
dence of God seemed to be at hand. When the
event proved otherwise than he expected, loyalty
being then so much a part of religion, and “the
powers” in the government of the mother
country being, according to the received opinions
of Christians; and like all other powers “that
be,” “ordained of God,” it was a question with
Mr. Eliot between decision and boldness,
amounting to a treasonable spirit, and submis-
sion to constituted authority. The ill suc-
cess of Cromwell no doubt made Eliot think
that he had misinterpreted the purposes of
God. Men are apt to feel and reason in this
manner. If a colony, or province, or a number
of men make insurrection, and succeed in over-
throwing the government, men call it a revolu-
tion, and the independence of the new state or
nation is acknowledged. If they do not succeed,
the attempt is called a plot, conspiracy, insur-
rection, and the actors who in the event of suc-
cess would have been “the fathers of their
country,” “the founders of a nation,” are gib-

LIFF OF JOHN ELIOT 261

beted by their generation, and regarded as
traitors by the next, and by the world. While
a revolution is pending, a man may say many
things as an observer and theorizer, which,
when events contradict them, he will do his best
to retract, or cover up. It cannot be wondered
at, that, amid the enthusiasm which attended
the Restoration, and the implicit submission of
the Colonial government to the restored king,
and influenced by the loyal spirit of his times,
Mr. Eliot should have deemed it a Christian
duty to confess and retract that which the prov-
idence of God seemed to indicate was an error.
He was not prepared to lift up a standard against
the government of Great Britain; the appeal
which Cromwell and his friends had made to
the God of nations and of battles, had not been
answered in his favor, and Mr. Eliot was meek
enough to yield submission to that which, in the
circumstances, seemed to be a Christian obliga-
tion. What should he have done? Had he
still believed that Cromwell was the anointed of
the Lord, and that Charles was the usurper, he
should have suffered any punishment rather
than falsify his sentiments. It may be charita-
bly supposed, however, that the events of the
Restoration changed his opinion, and made him
satisfied to be still a royalist. We have no evi-

262 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

dence in any part of his life, that Mr. Eliot was
a time-server, or coward; on, the contrary, he
was remarkable for decision of character and in-
dependence.
In confirmation of what has now been said
respecting Mr. Eliot's decision and firmness, we
may allude to the part he took in opposing the
sentiments and influence of that notorious dis-
turber of the churches in his day, Mrs. Anne
Hutchinson. She was of the sect of Antinomi-
ans, who abused the doctrines of free grace,
maintaining that the law is of no use or oblige-
tion under the dispensation of the Gospel, while
the doctrines they taught superseded the neces-
sity of good works, Mrs. Hutchinson pretended
to immediate impressions from heaven as the
rule of conduct, saying that she knew God
“spake to her, just as Abraham knew that it
was the command of Heaven to sacrifice Isaac.”
The Governor, Vane, who was an enthusiast,
countenanced this woman, and Rev. Mr. Cotton,
who took Mr. Eliot's place in the church at
Boston, when Mr. Eliot removed to Roxbury,
was also infected by her influence so far as to
oppose his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Wilson, and
the other ministers, who were generally opposed
to her. Had Mr. Eliot remained the teacher of
the church in Boston, it would have prevented

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT 263

that church from being divided as it was with
regard to Mrs. Hutchinson, through the influ-
ence of his successor, Mr. Cotton. Mr. Eliot,
with several other ministers, visited her, con-
versed with her upon religious subjects to
ascertain her sentiments and spirit, and remon-
strated with her for her bold denunciation of all
the Plantation except Messrs. Cotton and Wheel-
right. Mr. Eliot appeared as a witness against
her on her trial before the magistrates, and with
Hugh Peters and Mr. Weld, testified that she
said to them that “Mr. Cotton preached a cov-
enant of grace, and the other ministers a covenant
of works.” Mr. Eliot added, “I do remember
this also, that she said we were not able and
faithful ministers of the new covenant, because
we were not like the apostles before the ascen-
sion.” Mr. Eliot took occasion on this trial to
bear testimony against yielding to impressions
as a rule of faith and duty. A passage from Mr.
Hooker's sermons was quoted in justifica-
tion of Mrs. Hutchinson's statements. But Mr.
Eliot who had been brought up at the feet of
Mr. Hooker, and knew his opinions well, insist-
ed that the construction given to the passage
was contrary to Mr. Hooker's mind and judg-
ment. His old friend, Gov. Winthrop, gently
dissented from Mr. Eliot's strong testimony

264 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

against impressions. Mr. Eliot said, “I say
there is an expectation of things promised; but
to have a particular revelation of things, as they
shall fall out, there is no such thing in the
Scripture.” Gov. Winthrop replied, “We must
not limit the word of God.”* Mrs. Hutchinson
was condemned and banished. Her end soft-
ened the feelings of those who condemned her,
and made them reflect upon the inexpediency of
proceeding so strenuously as they did against
her. Such feelings always arise in the minds
of good men who have withstood prevailing
errors, not to make them regret the testimony
they bore for the truth, but to mourn over hasty
and excessive zeal, when patience, and perhaps
a measure of neglect, might sooner have ended
a controversy, or have prevented it altogether.
But it is easier for those who are removed, by
time or place, from the excitements or a contro-
versy, to moralize upon the best way of conduct-
ing it, than it would have been for them to exer-
cise the judicious temper which they recommend
and praise, had they themselves partaken in the
strife. Mr. Eliot showed himself in this contro-
versy to be no fanatical enthusiast, and gave

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 286

evidence that he was a man of decision and
courage.
The following characteristic letter was written
by the famous Rev. Richard Baxter to Dr. In-
crease Mather then in London. It was occa-
sioned by the receipt of Cotton Mather's Life of
Eliot.

"DEAR BROTHER:
      I thought I had been near dying at 12
o'clock, in bed; but your book revived me. I
lay reading it until between one and two. I
knew much of Mr. Eliot's opinions, by many
letters which I had from him. There was no
man on earth whom I honoured above him. It
is his evangelical work that is the apostolical
succession that I plead for. I am now dying, I
hope, as he did. It pleased me to read from
him my case, [my understanding faileth, my
memory faileth, my tongue faileth,] (and my
hand and pen,) but my charity faileth not.
That word much comforted me. I am as zeal-
ous a lover of the New England Churches as
any man, according to Mr. Noyes', Mr. Norton's,
Mr. Mitchel's, and the Synod's model.
    “I loved your father upon the letters I re-
ceived from him, I love you better for your
learning, labors, and peaceable moderation. I

     VOL. III.    3

266 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

love your son better than either of you, for the
excellent temper that appeareth in his writings.*
O that godliness and wisdom (may) thus in-
crease in all families! He hath honoured him-
self half as much as Mr. Eliot. I say but half
as much; for deeds excel words. God preserve
you and New England! Pray for
            Your fainting,
                 languishing Friend,
                      RI. BAXTER.

August 3,
1691.

    In contrast with the instructions which Mr.
Eliot and other Protestant missionaries to the
Indians gave the children of the wilderness,
Cotton Mather alludes to the instructions given
to the Indians in some parts of the country by
the Popish missionaries. He says,
     “By an odd accident there are lately fallen
into my hands the manuscripts of a Jesuit,
whom the French employed as a missionary
among the western Indians, in which papers
there are both a catechism, containing the prin-
ciples which those heathens are to be instructed

   * This testimony from Richard Baxter, in favor of the Mathers,
is valuable to those who have seen them decried by some modern
writers.

LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT. 267

in, and cases of conscience referring to their
conversations. The catechism, which is in the
Iroquois language--with a translation annexed,
has one chapter about heaven, and another
about hell, wherein are such thick skulled pas-
sages as these.”
     Q. How is the soil made in heaven?
     A. 'Tis a very fair soil, they want neither
for meats nor clothes; 'tis but wishing, and we
have them.
     Q. Are they employed in heaven?
     A. No, they do nothing; the fields yield corn,
beans, pumpkins, and the like without any tillage.
     Q. What sort of trees are there?
     A. Always green, full, flourishing.
     Q. Have they in heaven the same sun, the
same wind, the same thunder that we have here?
     A. No, the sun ever shines; it is always
fair weather.
     Q. But how are their fruits?
     A. In this one quality they exceed ours,
that they are never wasted; you have no sooner
plucked one, but you see another presently
hanging in its room.
     Concerning hell, it thus discourses.
     Q. What sort of a soil is that of hell?
     A. Very wretched soil; 'tis a fiery pit in
the centre of the earth.

268 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

     Q. Have they any light in hell?
     A. No. 'Tis always dark; there is al-
ways smoke there; their eyes are always in
pain with it; they can see nothing but the
devils.
     Q. What shaped things are the devils?
     A. Very ill shaped things; they go about
with vizards on, and they terrify men.
     Q. What do they eat in hell?
     A. They are always hungry, but the damned
feed on hot ashes and serpents there.
     Q. What water do they drink?
     A. Horrid water, nothing but melted lead.
     Q. Don't they die in hell?
     A. No; yet they cat one another every day;
but anon, God restores and renews the man that
was eaten, as a cropt plant in a little time re-
pullulates.
     One case of conscience is thus resolved by the
Jesuit:
     Q. Whether an Indian stealing a hatchet
from a Dutchman be bound to make restitution?
     A. If the Dutchman be one that has used any
trade with other Indians, the thief is not bound
unto any restitution; for it is certain he gains
more by such a trade than the value of many
hatchets in a year.
     In the History of the Early Jesuit Missions to

       LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.    269

the Indians of this country,* as well as in all
other Jesuit missions, there is a degree of zeal
and devotedness which is truly wonderful.
This is not the place to discuss the motives of
these men, nor the principle in human nature
which lends to their self-sacrifice in the mission-
ary work. The fruits of their work, however,
show that they do not promulgate the Gospel of
Christ in its simplicity, did we not know this by
more direct evidence.
    The wife of Mr. Eliot died three years before
him, at the age of 84. She had come to him
across the ocean, a betrothed bride, when he had
found a home for her in this new world. During
her residence here, “she had attained unto a
considerable skill in physick and chirurgery
which enabled her to dispense many safe, good,
and useful medicines unto the poor that had oc-
casion for them; and some hundreds of sick
and weak and maimed people owed praises to
God for the benefit which therein they freely
received of her.”₸
    She managed all the private affairs of her hus-
band for him that he might devote his whole
time and strength to his arduous public labors.
She brought up his six children of whom he

* See Early Jesuit Missions, &c., by Wm. Ingraham Kip.
₸ C. Mather.

270 LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT.

beautifully said, “they are all in Christ, or with
Christ,” and then she smoothed his passage to
the tomb by going before him, and making him
more willing to depart. “That one wife,” says
Mather, “which was given to him truly from
the Lord, be loved, prized, cherished, with a
kindness that notably represented the compass-
sion which he thereby taught his church to ex-
pect from the Lord Jesus Christ; and after he
had lived with her for more than half an hun-
dred years he followed her to the grave with
lamentations beyond those which the Jews, from
the figure of a letter in the text,* affirm, that
Abraham deplored his Sarah with; her depar-
ture made a deeper impression on him than
what any common affliction could. His whole
conversation with her had that sweetness and
that gravity and modesty beautifying of it, that
every one called them Zachery and Elizabeth.”₸
    The old gray haired apostle stood over her
coffin, and said to the concourse of people who
had come to the funeral, “Here lies my dear,
faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife. I

   *Mather's allusion is probably this: In Gen. 23:2, where it is
laid that Abraham came to weep for Sarah, a letter, smaller than the
rest, in the Hebrew word to weep for her is believed by the Jewish
critics to intimate that his grief was somewhat composed; (--“luc-
turn Abrahoe fuisse moderatum.”—Poole’s Synopsis.)--Ep.
    ₸ Magnalia I. 495.

APPENDIX. 313

often disgraced with that beastly sin of drunk-
enness. And themselves many of them greatly
delighting in strong liquors, not considering the
strength and evil of them, and also too well
knowing the liberty of the law which prohib-
iteth above half a pint of wine to a man that
therefore they may without offence to the law
have their half pint, and when they have had
it in one place they goe to another and have
the like till they be drunken. And sometime
find too much entertainment that way by such
who keepe no ordinary only desire theire trade
though it be with the hurt and perdition of their
soules. Therefore my humble request unto this
honored Court is this, that there may be but one
ordinary in all Boston who may have liberty to
sell wine or any strong drink unto the Indians.
And that whoever shall further them in their
vicious drinking for theirs own base ends who
keep no ordinary may not be suffered in such a
sinne without due punishment. And that at
what ordinary soever in any other towne as
well as Boston any Indian shall be found drunk,
having had any considerable quantity of drink
there, they should come under severe censure.
These things I am bold to present unto you for
the preventing of those scandalous evils which

VOL. III. 27

314 APPENDIX.

greatly blemish and interrupt their entertain-
ment of the Gospel through the policy of Satan
who counter worketh Christ with not a little un-
comfortable success. And thus with my hearty
desire of the gracious and blessed presence of
God among you in all your weighty affairs, I
humbly take leave and rest your servant to com-
mand in our Savour Christ,

JOHN ELIOT.
this 23d of the 8th 1648.

M.--See page 134.

The next petition is exceedingly interesting.

To the Honorable the Governor and Council
sitting at Boston the 13th of the 6th, 1675.
The humble petition of John Eliot,

SHEWETH,

That the terrour of selling away such Indians
in the Ilands for perpetual Slaves who shall
yield up themselves to your mercy is likely to
be an effectual prolongation of the warre and
such an exasperation of them as may produce
we know not what evil consequences upon all
the land. Christ hath said, “Blessed are the
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,” This
[treatment] of them is worse than death. To

APPENDIX. 315

put to death men that have deserved to die is an
ordinance of God and a blessing is promised to
it. It may be done in faith. The design of
Christ in these last days is not to extirpate na-
tions but to gospelize them. He will spread the
Gospel sound the world about, rev. 11. 15. The
kingdoms of the world have become the king
doms of our Lord and of his Christ. His sover-
eign hand and grace hath brought the Gospel into
these dark places of the earth. When we came
we declared to the world, and it is recorded, yea
we are instructed by our letters patent from the
King's majesty that the endeavour of the In-
dians conversion not their extirpation was one
great end of our enterprize in coming to these
ends of the earth. The Lord hath so succeeded
his work as that (by his grace) they have the
Holy Scriptures and sundry of themselves able
to teach their countrymen the good knowledge
of God. The light of the Gospel is risen
among those who sat in darkness and in the re-
gion of the shadow of death. And however
some of them have refused to receive the Gos-
pel, and are now incensed in their spirits unto a
warre against the English, yet by that good
promise, Ps. 1:1-6, I doubt not but the mean-
ing of Christ is to open the door for the free pas-

316 APPENDIX.

sage of the Gospel among them, and that the
Lord will publish that word, v. 6. Yet have I
set my king on my holy hill of Syon, though
some rage at it. My humble request is if you
would follow Christ his design in this matter to
promote the free passage of religion among
them and not destroy them. To send them
away from the light of the Gospel which Christ
hath graciously given them unto a place, a state,
a way of spiritual darkness to the eternal ruin
of their souls is as I apprehend to net contrary
to the mind of Christ. God's command is that
we should inlarge the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Esay, 54:2. Enlarge the place of thy tent. It
seemeth to me that to sell them away for slaves
is to hinder the inlargement of his kingdom.
How can a Christian [soule yield to act]-(these
words are indistinct) in casting away their
soules for which Christ hath with an eminent
hand provided an offer of the Gospel. To sell
soules for money seemeth to me a dangerous
merchandise. If they deserve to dy, it is far
better to be put to death under godly [rulers]
who will take care if meanes may be used that
they may die penitently. To fall away from all
meanes of grace when Christ hath provided
meanes of grace for them, is for us to be active

APPENDIX. 317

in the destroying their soules when we are
highly obliged to seek their conversion and sal-
vation and have opportunity in our hands so to
doe. Deut. 23:15, 16.* A fugitive servant
from his Pagan master might not be delivered
to his master, but be kept in Israel for the good
of his soul. How much less lawful is it to sell
away souls from under the light of the Gospel
into a condition where their souls will be utterly
lost, so far as appertains unto man. All men (of
rending) condemned the Spaniard for cruelty
upon this point for destroying men and depopu-
lating the land. The country is large enough,
here is land enough for them and us to, Prov.
14:28. In the multitude of people is the King's
honor. It will be much to the glory of Christ
to have many brought in to worship his great
name. I beseech the honored Council to par-
don my boldnesse, and let the case of conscience
be discussed orderly before the thing be acted.
Cover my weaknesse and weigh the reason and
religion that laboreth in this great case of con-
science.

*“Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is
escaped,” &c.

27*

318 APPENDIX.

N.-See page 136.

The following petition of Mr. Eliot illustrates
    the kind interest which he took in the com-
    mon and private affairs of the Indians. I
    have copied it from Mass. State Papers, (In-
    dian Papers) 30. p. 15. 1639-1705.

PETITION THAT TWO INDIANS MAY HAVE THEIR
DUE.

The humble petition of John Eliot to this Hon-
orable Court.

First in the behalfe of Totherswompe unto
whom one of Uncas his men doth owe 18 fath-
om of wampompeague for 6 beare skins and he
cannot obtain justice with ease and therefore
doth humbly intreat this honored Court to pro-
cure justice for him in this particular. Phoxon
well knoweth his demand is just and true, as
Thomas and Stanton can testify.
The other is in behalf of Anonganisch, who
lost 17 fathom which Uncas and his men tooke
unjustly from him 3 years since when they fell
upon the Indians by Mr. Winthrop's plantation,
and he saith that when his case was at this
Court formerly heard The Govemour promised
him that he should have justice, and that doth
embolden him to sue again in the case. The

APPENDIX. 319

bringing them to doe justice doth so far cause
them to honour and acknowledge God and there-
fore I humbly entreat your favour in further-
ance of the same, and so commending all your
weighty occasions to the blessing of the Lord.

     Your worships servant
            in Jesus Christ,
                 JOHN ELIOT.*

O.--See page 48.

THE CHURCH IN ROXBURY.

(See Am. Quarterly Register, Vol. 8th.)
THOMAS WELDE, the first Minister of Rox-
bury, was a minister in Essex, England. Re-

    * Those who are interested in the subjects referred to in
other petitions or Mr. Eliot may find those petitions as follows:
    Petition that the Indians may have more land, Mass. State Papers,
30, page 31.
    Petition in relation to exchange of land with the Indians, do. do.
page 81.
    Statement of John Eliot respecting land,, do. do. pp. 99, 100.
    Complains of wrong done to the Nipmucks by the Narragansetts,
      do. do, page 138.
    Gookin’s and Eliot’s petition for lands for the Christian Indians,
        do. do. p. 286.
    There are also some original MSS. of Mr. Eliot's in the Hutchin-
son papers in the Library of the Mass. Historical Society, but they
are somewhat illegible and of no special pertinency to the present
work.

320 APPENDIX.

fusing to conform to the requirements of the
Established Church, he sought the quiet enjoy-
ment of the rights of conscience in this country.
He arrived in Boston, June 6, 1632. and entered
upon the pastoral office in Roxbury, at which
time the Church was embodied. In 1641, he
was sent as an agent, with Rev. Hugh Peters,
to England for the Province and never returned.
    John ELIOT became teacher of the Church in
Roxbury, Nov. 6, 1632. The next year he be-
came colleague with Mr. Welde.
    SAMUEL DANFORTH was colleague with Mr.
Eliot after Mr. Welde went to England. He
continued in office 24 years.
    NEHEMIAH WALTER, born in Ireland, came to
Boston at the age of 16. Graduated at Harvard
College, and was the third colleague of Mr.
Eliot. He had so good knowledge of the French
Language that he preached to a society of French
Protestants while their Pastor was absent.
Whitefield called him “the good old Puritan.”
A well known publication of his is called, “The
Wonderfulness of Christ.”
     THOMAS WALTER, his son, became colleague
with his father, but died 7 years after.
     OLIVER PEABODY, son of the Missionary at
Natick of the same name, succeeded Mr. Wal-

APPENDIX. 321

ter, but continued only 18 months, and died
when on the eve of being married, aged 27.
   AMOS ADAMS, was Pastor at Roxbury 22 years
and died of the epidemic which prevailed in the
camp at Roxbury and Cambridge. The tide of
one of his published Sermons was, The only
Hope and Refuge of Sinners.
    ELIPHALET PORTER succeeded him and con-
tinued in office 51 years.
    GEORGE PUTNAM, the present Pastor, was or-
dained colleague with him, July 7, 1830.

     A Church was organized in Roxbury, Sept.
18, 1834, composed of Members of Evangelical
sentiments, and of the Orthodox Congregational
denomination. It took the name of “ELIOT
CHURCH.”
     Rev. John S. C. Abbott was ordained Pastor,
Nov. 25, 1835.
     Rev. Augustus C. Thompson was ordained
Pastor, July 27, 1842.

P .--See page 61.

ROXBURY “ELIOT SCHOOL FUND.”
“Eliot School Fund had its origin in the do-
nation of Rev. John Eliot; of Roxbury, well
known as the Apostle to the Indians, who, in

322 APPENDIX.

the year 1689, conveyed an estate of about sev-
enty-five acres of land to certain persons and
their heirs, as Trustees for “the maintenance,
support and encouragement of a school and
called Jamaica or the Pond Plain. for the teach-
and instructing of the children of that end
of the town (together with such Indians and ne-
groes as shall or may come to the said school)
and to no other use, intent, or purpose what-
ever. This is the language of the deed.” (The
fund was afterwards increased by donations.)
“The Eliot school fund consists (1840) of
$9,699 94. The School also possesses some
real estate, which yields an annual income of
$381.”
Report or the Committee on the School Fund,
Roxbury. Auditor's Reports, 1831- 1846.

   The following are the principal of Mr. Eliot's
publications. It is remarkable that no entire
Sermon of his has been preserved.
    Answer to Norcott's book against Infant Bap-
tism.
    The Harmony of the Gospels in the Holy
History or Jesus Christ.

APPENDIX. 323

     The Christian Commonwealth.
     The Divine management of Gospel Churches
by the Ordinance or Councils, constituted in or-
der according to the Scriptures, which may be a
means or uniting those two holy and eminent
parties, the Presbyterians and the Congrega-
tional.
     Indian Bible, Catechism. and Psalms of Da-
vid in metre.
     Baxter's “Call to the unconverted,” translated
into the Indian Tongue.
     The Practice of Piety, translated into the
Indian Tongue. This book was written by
Lewis Bayly, for some time Chaplain to James
the First. In 1792, it had reached the seventy-
first edition. The author was promoted to the
see of Bangor, 1616. See Lib. Am. Biog. V.
245. Francis' Life or Eliot. BLOG. BRITAN,
Art. BAYLY.
    Thomas Shepard's Sincere Convert, trans-
lated into the Indian tongue.
    Thomas Shepard's Sound Believer, translated
into the Indian tongue.
    Indian, Primer.
    This little book has been of great help to
linguists by the division of syllables in it for
children, thereby giving learners of a larger
growth some insight into the formation of In-
words.

324 APPENDIX.

NOTE.

The following appropriate conclusion to this volume came to hand
just as the last pages were going to press.

The CHOCTAWS TO THEIR WHITE BRETHREN OF
IRELAND. – A meeting for the relief of the starving
poor of Ireland was held at the Choctaw agency, on
the 23d ult. Maj. William. Armstrong was called to
the chair, and J. B. Luce was appointed secretary.
A circular of the “Memphis committee” was read
by Maj. Armstrong, after which the meeting contrib-
uted $170. All subscribed, agents, missionaries,
traders and Indians, a considerable portion of which
fund was made up by the latter. The “poor Indian”
sending his mite to the poor Irish!

[Arkansas, Intelligencer, April 3.]