informed "of the ready mind of the Court, upon

1645.

Oct. 1.

mature deliberation, to enact what should be thought meet to bring the natives to the knowledge of God and his ways," and were invited to "return their thoughts about it." Next it was "ordered and 1646. decreed that two ministers should be chosen by Nov. 4. the Elders of the churches every year, at the Court of Election, and so to be sent, with the consent of their churches, with whomsoever would freely offer themselves to accompany them in that service, to make known the heavenly counsel of God among the Indians in most familiar manner, by the help of some able interpreter, as might be most available to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, and their conversion to Jesus Christ; and, for this end, that something might be allowed them by the General Court to give away freely to those Indians whom they should perceive most willing and ready to be instructed by them."1

The General Court of Massachusetts was thus the first Missionary Society in the history of Protestant Christendom. A week before it passed this order, John The apostle Eliot had made his first essay in preaching to the John Eliot. Indians. Now forty-two years old, he had been fourteen years the greatly respected teacher of the church of Roxbury. Whether with a view from the first to the apostleship which he was now assuming, or for mere purposes of personal convenience, or for the gratification of a taste for philological studies (in which he was said to have excelled at the University), he had been for a considerable time endeavoring to master the language of the natives. Falling in with "a pregnant-witted young man, who had been a servant in an English house, who pretty well understood his own language, and had a clear pro

1 Mass. Rec., II. 84, 134, 178, 179. Perhaps, however, there was a Dutch mission to Ceylon a little earlier.

For some of his antecedents, see

Vol. I. 357. The Reverend Dr. Convers Francis has published an excellent Life of John Eliot, in Sparks's American Biography, Vol. V.

nunciation," he took him into his family; and hav ing first, with his help, qualified himself to translate the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue, he was able to proceed with more ease to get possession of a larger vocabulary, and to obtain an insight into the curious principles of the composition of words and sentences in the Indian tongues.

Beginning of

labors.

In an interview with some natives, he "told them that they and we were already all one, save in two things, which make the only difference betwixt them his missionary and us; - first, we know, serve, and pray unto God, and they do not; secondly, we labor and work in building, planting, clothing ourselves, &c., and they do not; and, would they but do as we do in these things, they would be all one with Englishmen. They said they did not know God, and therefore could not tell how to pray to him nor serve him." He told them he "would come to their wigwams, and teach them, their wives and children, which they seemed very glad of."2

Visit of Eliot

Indians near

Accordingly, Eliot, with three others (one of whom was probably Wilson, pastor of Boston), "having sought God, went unto the Indians inhabiting within our and others to bounds, with desire to make known the things of Watertown. their peace to them." They were met by five or Oct. 28. six natives, at a little distance from a cluster of wigwams by the falls of Charles River, and conducted to a hut, where they found "many more Indians, men, women, children, gathered together from all quarters round about." The service began with a prayer in English; after which Eliot, in a sermon in the Indian language, "ran through all the principal matters of religion." It lasted an hour and a quarter, and was so favorably received by the listeners as to delight their friends "that they should smell some things of the alabaster-box broken

1 Eliot, Indian Grammar, 66; comp. Glorious Progress of the Gospel, 19.

* Letter of Eliot, in Shepard's Clear Sunshine of the Gospel, 17.

up in that dark and gloomy habitation of filthiness and unclean spirits." The visitors "asked them if they understood all that which was already spoken, and whether all of them in the wigwam did understand, or only some few; and they answered to this question with multitude of voices, that they all of them did understand all that which was then spoken to them." A number of questions were put and answered on both sides; and "after three hours thus spent with them," and another prayer, Eliot and his friends, "having given the children some apples, and the men some tobacco, and what else they then had at hand, . departed with many welcomes." Before the end of the year, three other visits, Nov. 11, 25, with intervals of a fortnight, were made to the Dec. 9. same place. The attendance of natives was continually on the increase; they received instruction and counsel with respectful attention; and on the whole it was thought that there had been "hopeful beginnings."1

March.

The interest in the undertaking increased and spread. "As soon as ever the fierceness of the winter was past," the missionary labors were resumed with zeal. 1647. Shepard, of Cambridge, relates that he "went out to the Indian lecture, where Mr. Wilson, Mr. Allin, of Dedham, Mr. Dunster [President of Harvard College], beside many other Christians, were present."2 Great encouragement was derived from the belief that this

1 A circumstantial account of the four meetings mentioned above is given in "The Day-Breaking, if not the SunRising of the Gospel, with the Indians in New England," published in London in 1647. The author was probably John Wilson, Pastor of Boston. In a short Preface, Nathaniel Ward (formerly of Ipswich, now in London) says: "He that penned these following relations is a minister of Christ in New England, so eminently godly and faithful, that what he here reports, as an

eye or an ear witness, is not to be questioned." Comp. Winthrop, II. 303,

304.

2 Clear Sunshine, &c., 6. (This tract, published in 1648, had been sent by Shepard in the preceding year to Winslow, then in London; comp. "Clear Sunshine," 1, with "Glorious Progress," 2.) Dunster, it seems, had had this business at heart six years and more: "Master Henry Dunster, schoolmaster of Cambridge, deserves commendations above many; he hath

"forlorn generation," "these poor natives, the dregs of mankind, and the saddest spectacles of misery of mere men upon earth," alien "from common civility, almost humanity itself," were still not an originally incapable, but a "degenerate race," the barbarized remains of the ten Israelitish tribes who were scattered at the time of the Assyrian conquest. It was understood to be the Divine purpose to have those children of Israel conducted back to the fold before "the fulness of the Gentiles should be brought in ;" and the hope that, by the strange concurrence of recent circumstances, this dawn of the millennial golden age was to be made to brighten in the West, was full of excitement to the devout imagination of the laborers in this uncouth vineyard.

But Eliot and his associates were no visionaries, to trust entirely to their interpretation of prophecy, or to a supernatural power to attend upon preaching. They

the platform and way of conversion of the natives indifferent right, and much studies the same; ..... he will, without doubt, prove an instrument of much good in the country, being a good scholar, and having skill in the tongues; he will make it good, that the way to instruct the Indians must be in their own language, not English." (Lechford, 52, 53.) In Bishop Hall's "Diverse Practical Cases of Conscience Resolved" (323), is the following passage:

"O that we could approve to God and our consciences, that this ['the propagation of Christian religion'] is our main motive and principal drift in our Western plantations. But how little appearance there is of this holy care and endeavor, the plain dealer upon knowledge hath sufficiently informed us; although I now hear of one industrious spirit that hath both learned the language of our new islanders, and printed some part of the Scripture in it, and trained up some of their children in the principles of Christianity."

By "the plain dealer," the reader naturally understands Thomas Lechford, who entitled his work “Plaine Dealing." But Bishop Hall's book was published in 1649, when no part of the Scripture had been printed in a translation into the Indian language; and his preface is dated Sept. 12, 1648. I think it likely that his memory confounded what he may have heard concerning Eliot's plan of translating the Bible with what he had read in Lechford's book respecting Dunster. Lechford, while in America, had expressed, in a letter, his approbation of an earlier work of Bishop Hall, and when he afterwards published this letter in England (Plaine Dealing, 69), would naturally make court to the Bishop by placing it in his way.

1 True Relation, &c., 1.

Day-Breaking, &c., 14, 15, 19. 3 Glorious Progress, &c., Epistle Dedicatory, 73, 93, 95; Appendix to do., 22

24; Light Appearing, &c., 14, 16; comp. Thorowgood, Jewes in America.

believed that that Divine blessing which was hoped for would follow the use of means such as it belonged to a benevolent human wisdom to devise. From the first period of Eliot's attention to the subject, he perceived that some degree of civilization of the Indians must precede any development among them of the Christian character.1 He lost no time in respect to "preparations for the schooling" of the children. As the conditions of the undertaking disclosed themselves, he saw the importance of endeavoring to train his converts to industrious habits in agriculture and some easy mechanical arts, and of bringing them together in compact settlements of their own, where, withdrawn from unpropitious influences, they might be favorably influenced by their Christian neighbors and by one another, and where they might have the profitable mental and moral discipline incident to an administration of their own affairs.1

The government were disposed cordially to second these efforts. They "appointed a committee to treat

government.

1646.

... about such parcels of land which they, Further acwith Mr. Shepard, Mr. Allin, and Mr. Eliot, should tion of the conceive meet to purchase for the encouragement of the Indians to live in an orderly way."5 Ten pounds were voted to Mr. Eliot," as a gratuity from

1 "I confess I think no great good will be done till they be more civilized." (Day-Breaking, &c., 16.) "I find it absolutely necessary to carry on civility with religion." (Glorious Progress, &c., 16.)

' Day-Breaking, &c., 24; Clear Sunshine, &c., 38; Further Discovery, &c.,

18.

Nov. 4.

and others about it, and this I propound as my general rule through the help of the Lord :- They shall be wholly governed by the Scriptures in all things both in Church and State; they shall have no other lawgiver; 'The Lord shall be their Lawgiver, the Lord shall be their Judge; the Lord shall be their King, and he will save them.'" (Fur

• Clear Sunshine, &c., 28; Glorious ther Discovery, &c., 23; comp. 28.) Progress, &c., 15.

The last sentence in this quotation was the motto attached to Cotton's scheme of Laws for Massachusetts. (See above, p 25, note.)

5 Mass. Rec., II. 166; comp. DayBreaking, &c., 22.