1647. May 26. the Court, in respect of his great pains and charge in instructing the Indians in the knowledge of God." The Magistrates were directed to take care to have a Court held "once every quarter, at such place or places where the Indians did ordinarily assemble to hear the word of God," with permission to the Indian chiefs to bring any of their own people to the said Courts, and to keep a Court of themselves once every month."2 Eliot availed himself of the meeting of the. Synod to secure for his object the essential aid June 8. of the clergy. "There was a great confluence of Indians from all parts;" and he delivered "an Indian Lecture." It was conceived to be not unseasonable at such a time, "partly that the reports of God's work begun among them might be seen and believed of the chief who were then sent and met from all the churches of Christ in the country, who could hardly believe the reports they had received concerning these new stirs among the Indians; and partly hereby to raise up a greater spirit of prayer for the carrying on of the work begun upon the Indians, among all the churches and servants of the Lord Jesus." The scene "did 'marvellously affect all the wise and godly ministers, magistrates, and people, and did raise their hearts up to great thankfulness to God." 3 Trophies of the assault upon Indian godlessness were presently gathered from various places. On the Neponset, by Dorchester, was a cluster of wigwams, which owned the sway of Cutchamaquin. Eliot had Dorchester visited them six weeks before his more encouraging attempt at the place which engaged his Preaching at and other places. 1 Mass. Rec., II. 189. 2 Ibid., 188. This scheme, Eliot says, originated with themselves. "They desired that they might have a Court among them for government, at which motion we rejoiced, seeing it came from themselves, and tended so much to civilize them; since which time I moved the General Court in it," &c. (Clear Sunshine, &c., 28.) 3 Clear Sunshine, &c., 11; comp. Winthrop, II. 308. "3 principal attention.1 Cutchamaquin never became a satisfactory convert, but some of his subjects manifested a more docile spirit. "The awakening of these Indians raised a great noise among all the rest round about." A message came to Eliot from the Indians about Concord, desiring him " to preach, as he could find time, among them;" and they adopted a rude code of rules, drawn up for them by Simon Willard of that place.2 A visit to Yarmouth, for a different purpose, afforded Eliot opportunity for "speaking with, and preaching to, the Indians in the remote places about Cape Cod;' poor but this was followed by no important success. With the savages who met every year at "a great fishing-place upon one of the falls of the Merrimack," and especially with the family and subjects of "old Papassaconaway, who was a great sagamore, and had been a great witch in all men's esteem," he flattered himself that he labored to better effect. "Some of Sudbury Indians, some of Concord Indians, some of Mystic Indians, and some of Dedham Indians were ingenious, and prayed unto God, and sometimes came to the place where he taught, to hear the word." From Lynn, where all the rest were "naught," "one sometimes came to hear the word, and tell him that he prayed to God." At Quaboag (Brookfield), whither the sachem of the place conducted him with a guard of twenty men, Eliot "found sundry hungry after instruction." 5 1 Day-Breaking, &c., 3. 2 Clear Sunshine, &c., 2-4; comp. Willard, Life and Times of Major Simon Willard, 156. 3 Clear Sunshine, &c., 8. 4 • Glorious Progress, &c., 9, 10. 5 Further Discovery, &c., 21. — Eliot asked a Narragansett sachem, "why they did not learn of Mr. Williams, who had lived among them divers years. And he soberly answered, that they did not care to learn of him, because he was no good man, but went out and worked upon the Sabbath-day." (Clear Sunshine, &c., 31.) "In Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," wrote Daniel Gookin so late as 1674, "there are sundry English live, that are skilful in the Indian tongue, especially Mr. Williams of Providence, of whose endeavors I have heard something that way. But God hath not yet honored Still earlier, by individual enterprise, an experiment of the same nature had been made on an island, near to Massachusetts, which had lately come under the jurisdiction of that Colony. Thomas Mayhew, and his son, of the same name, had gone from Watertown to Martha's Vineyard, for which they had obtained a patent from the Earl of Stirling. The deplorable condition of the natives among whom they lived attracted their benevolent attention. One after another of the savages listened to their exhibitions of Christianity. One in particular, hews at Mar- named Hiacoomes, was thought to give unquestionable evidence of genuine conversion to God by his edifying discourse and holy life and conversation. The younger Mayhew found himself presently employed in missionary work, and in a few years he could say: "There are now, by the grace of Sept. 7. God, thirty-nine Indian men of this meeting, be The May tha's Vine yard. 1644. 1650. him, or any other in that Colony that I can hear of, with being instrumental to convert any of those Indians." (Historical Collections of the Indians, Chap. X. § 4, in Mass. Hist. Coll., I. 141 et seq. Comp. Cotton, Way of the Churches Cleared, &c., 78-82.) 1 Records, &c., in Hazard, II. 18. 2 The elder Mayhew came from Southampton, in England, and was admitted a freeman of Massachusetts May 14, 1634 (Mass. Rec., I. 369), being then forty-one or forty-two years old. His name has the prefix of Mr. in the record, given to very few of the large number who then took the freeman's oath. He was a Deputy from Watertown in the General Court in 1636, and for some years after. Thomas Mayhew, Jr. was thirteen or fourteen years old, when he came with his father to America. In the distribution which the Council for New England made of its lands just before its dissolution, in 1635 (see 3 Vol. I. 400; Hubbard, 228), the Earl of Stirling received a grant of " Pemaquid and its dependencies on the coast of Maine, together with Long Island and the adjacent islands." Mayhew bought Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Isles, in 1641, of James Forrett, Lord Stirling's agent. Sir Ferdinando Gorges also set up a claim to this property, which Mayhew had to quiet by a further payment. He established himself in Martha's Vineyard in 1644, his son having gone thither a year or two before. (Hough, Papers relating to the Island of Nantucket, &c., ix-xii, 1-6.) It must have been by virtue of his ownership of the soil that Mayhew felt authorized to submit his islands to the government of Massachusetts. * Letter of Thomas Mayhew, in Glorious Progress, &c., 3-5; comp. Experience Mayhew, Indian Converts, &c., sides women that are looking this way, which we suppose to exceed the number of the men."1 There were not wanting those who shared but faintly in the enthusiasm excited by these proceedings. "Some thought that all this work was done and acted thus by the Indians to please the English, and for applause from them;" and the most favorable judges were not without fear, that "there had been some coolings among the best." But it was undeniable that "we find it so also among many people, that are English, in their first work ;" and gratitude and hope predominated. Intelligence of what was taking place was forwarded without delay to England, where it was received with delight. Wilson, minister of Boston, hastened to send an account to Winslow, then in London; and by the care of Ward, lately minister of Ipswich, it was at once land. brought before the public through the press.3 Shepard, minister of Cambridge, sent further information; and it was thought of such importance, that twelve ministers, of the most eminent in England, and representing both sects, Presbyterians and Independents, provided for an edition of it, in which, by an address under their 1 Letter to Henry Whitfield, in "Light Appearing," &c., 12." The way that I am now in, through the grace of God, for the carrying on of this great work, is by a Lecture every fortnight, whereunto both women and children do come; and, first, I pray with them, teach them, catechize their children, sing a psalm, and all in their own language. I confer every last day of the week with Hiacoomes, about his subject-matter of preaching to the Indians the next day, when I furnish him with what spiritual food the Lord is pleased to afford me for them." (Ibid., 13.)- Eliot also particularly describes his own method: "First, I catechize the children and youth; Sec ..... Interest ex cited in Eng 1647. ondly, I preach unto them out of some This tract (the "Day-Breaking," &c.) brings down the narrative to Dec. 9, 1646 (p. 24). Winslow, sailing" about the middle" of that month (Winthrop, II. 317), perhaps took it with him. names to the "Lords and Commons assembled in High Court of Parliament," and another "to the godly and well affected of the kingdom of England," they commended the object of evangelizing the natives of New England to the patronage of the State and of private Christians. They said they now saw the reason why their exiled brethren had remained in America, "when providences invited their return;" it was because God had resolved, "if he cannot have an England here, he can have an England there."1 1648. Winslow diligently availed himself of all the intelligence of this movement which came to his hands; and with such effect, that Parliament instructed the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations "to prepare and March 17. bring in an Ordinance for the Encouragement and Advancement of Learning and Piety in New England."2 But matters of more pressing interest intervened, and for the present nothing was done. The more positive and circumstantial communications, which successively came over, encouraged another attempt. Winslow published a collection of them, with an address to "The Parliament of England and the Council of State," which secured their favorable attention; and an Ordinance was Propagating passed" for the Promoting and Propagating of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England." It constituted a Corporation in England, to consist of a President, a Treasurer, and fourteen Assistants, with authority to hold "any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, in England or Wales, not exceeding two thousand pounds per annum, and any goods and sums of money whatsoever." It ordained that "a general collection Society for the Gospel. 1649. July 19. 1 Clear Sunshine, &c., Epistle Dedicatory, and Epistle to the Reader. * Four or five years before, William Castell, "Parson of Courtenhall in Northampton," had addressed Parlia ment on the subject, in a memorial approved by a large number of English divines. It is in Hazard, I. 527. Glorious Progress, &c., Epistle Dedicatory. |