Baptist Board of Foreign Missions for Dec. 8.

As a large portion of your Magazine is occupied with Missionary Intelligence, I have thought that a brief account of the labours of the Rev. John Eliot among the Indians would be acceptable to your readers. This extract is chiefly taken from "Brown's History of the propagation of Christianity-among the heathen, since the Reformation," a work written with much ability and candour, and deserves a place in the library of every good man.

"I do see," says this excellent man," that it was a great favour of God to me that my first years were seasoned with the fear of God, the word and prayer. Is there not sufficient encouragement to educate ingenuous youth, and impress the tender heart with lessons of wisdom, to think they will shed tears of grateful sensibility on our sepulchres ?

When Mr. Eliot left the uni-* versity of Cambridge, he himself IN the year 1646, the General became a teacher; and while he Court of Massachusetts passed the led children and youth into the first act, encouraging the propaga-paths of virtue, acquired also an tion of the gospel among the In- acquaintance with the human heart. dians; and it was recommended At this time he had an opportunity to the elders of the churches, to of hearing the venerable Hooker, consider the means by which it and never lost the serious impresmight best be accomplished. One sions which he received under his of the first to comply with this preaching; to him he was always order was Mr. John Eliot. attached, as well as to his mode of know but little of his connections administering the order of the before he left his native country. churches. He was born in England, A. D. 1604. In the year 1631, Mr. Eliot arThere is nothing related of his pa-rived at Boston; and the succeedrents, except that they gave him a ing year, Nov. 5, 1632, was settled liberal education, and were exem- as teacher of the church in Roxplary for their piety;-for this their bury. He had for two years past memory is precious. been applying to the study of the FEB. 1825.

We

5

ance of a young, ingenious native who understood English, whom he hired for this purpose; and notwithstanding the enormous length of many of the words, the harshness of the pronunciation, and the want of affinity with the languages of Europe, he was now able not only to understand, but to speak it intelligibly.

Indian language, with the assist-lishmen were ever so ignorant of Jesus Christ as they were? Whether Jesus Christ could understand prayers in the Indian language? Whether, if a man was wicked, and his child good, God would be offended with that child; for, in the second commandment, it was said, He visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children?" To these, and some other questions of a similar kind, Mr. Eliot and his friends endeavoured to give the Indians plain and simple answers ; and after a conference of about three hours, they returned home highly delighted with their visit.

Encouraged by so favourable a reception, Mr. Eliot and his friends paid the Indians a second visit about a fortnight after, and found a still greater number assembled than before. After teaching the children a few questions, he discoursed to the whole congregation about an hour concerning the nature of God, the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, the necessity of faith in him, and the awful consequences of neglecting the gospel." During these exercises, the whole of them appeared extremely serious and attentive; and after sermon, an aged Indian stood up, and, with tears in his eyes, enquired, "Whether it was not too late for such an old man as he, who was now near death, to repent and seek after God ?" Some others asked, "How the English came to differ so much from the Indians in their knowl

Having, in this manner, prepared himself for the work, Mr. Eliot, about the end of October, proceeded, with two or three of his friends, to visit some Indians, at a place about four or five miles from his own house, to whom he had previously given notice of his design | to struct them in the Christian faith. Several of them met him at some distance from their wigwams, and, bidding him welcome, conducted him into a large apartment, where a great number of their countrymen were assembled, to hear this new doctrine which the English were to teach them. After a short prayer, Mr. Eliot delivered a discourse to them in the Indian tongue, which lasted upwards of an hour, and comprehended many of the most important articles of natural and revealed religion. He informed them of the creation of the world, and the fall of man; of the greatness of God, the maker of all things; of the ten command ments, and the threatenings denounced against those who broke them; of the character and office of Jesus Christ; of the last judg-edge of God and Jesus Christ, since ment, the joys of heaven, and the they had all at first but one father? torments of hell. Having finished How it happened that sea-water his discourse, he asked them, wheth- was salt and river water fresh ? er they understood him; to which How it came to pass, if the water they answered, they understood all. was higher than the earth, that it He then desired them, as was after- did not overflow the whole world ?" wards his usual practice, to ask Mr. Eliot and his friends having him any questions they might think answered these and some other necessary with regard to the ser- questions, the Indians told them mon, upon which some of them they did greatly thank God for .made several inquiries of him, such their coming among them, and for as: "How a man might come to what they had heard they were Know Jesus Christ? Whether Eng-wonderful things to them.

About a fortnight after, Mr. | habitations, the women began to Eliot visited the Indians a third learn to spin, to make various little time, but the assembly was not so articles, and to carry the natural numerous as before; for the pow-productions of the country to maraws, or conjurors, had, in the meanwhile, interfered with their authority, dissuading some from hearing the English ministers, and threatening others with death in case of disobedience. Such, how ever, as were present appeared very serious, and seemed much affected with the sermon. Two or three days after, Wampas, a sage Indian, with two of his companions, came to the English, and desired to be admitted into one of their families. He brought his son and two or three other Indian children with him, begging they might be educated in the Christian faith; and, at the next meeting, all who were present offered their children to be catechised and instructed by the White people.

Encouraged by these auspicious circumstances, the General Court of Massachusetts, on the application of Mr. Eliot, gave the Indians in that neighbourhood some land on which to build a town, where they might live together, enjoy the privilege of religious instruction, and cultivate the arts of life. This place they called Noonatomen.

ket for sale. In winter, they sold brooms, staves, baskets, turkies; in spring, cranberries, strawberries, fish; in summer, hortleberries, grapes, &c. Besides, several of them wrought with the English in hay-time and harvest; but, it was remarked, they were not so industrious, nor yet so able to work, as those who had been accustomed to it from their infancy. Some of the men learned such trades as were deemed most necessary; and so great was the improvement they made, that they built a house "for public worship, fifty feet in length, and twenty-five in breadth, which appeared like the workmanship of an English housewright.

While these things were going on at Noonatomen, the Indians in the neighbourhood of Concord expressed a similar desire of uniting together, in a regular society, of receiving the Christian faith, and of learning the arts of civilized life. With this view they requested Mr. Eliot to come and preach the gospel to them, and they begged the government to grant them a piece of land on which they might build themselves a town.

The seat of the town being marked out, Mr. Eliot advised Mr. Eliot, however, by no means them to surround it with ditches confined his labours to these two and a stone wall, promising to fur-places. Though he still retained nish them with shovels, spades, the pastoral charge of the church mattocks, and crows of iron for at Roxbury, yet he usually went this purpose; and he likewise gave once a fortnight on a missionary money to such as wrought hardest. excursion, travelling through the By these means, the village was in different parts of Massachusetts a short time not only enclosed, and of the neighbouring country, but the wigwams of the meanest as far as Cape Cod, and preaching were equal to the houses of the the gospel of the kingdom to as sachems in other towns, being many of the Indians as would hear built not with matts, but with the him. Many were the toils, many bark of trees, and divided into the hardships, many the dangers, several apartments; whereas, for- he encountered in the prosecution merly, they used to eat and sleep, of this important work. In a letter and perform all the offices of nato the Hon. Mr. Winslow, he says, ture in the same place. "I have not been dry night nor

Being now settled in comfortable || day from Tuesday to Saturday,

a

but have travelled from place to place in that condition; and at night I pull off my boots, wring my stockings, and on with them again, and so continue. But God steps in and helps me. I have considered the exhortation of Paul to his son Timothy, Endure hardness as good soldier of Jesus Christ." Such sufferings as these, however, were the least of his trials. When travelling in the wilderness without a friend or companion, he was sometimes treated by the Indians in a very barbarous manner, and was not unfrequently in danger even of his life. Both the chiefs and the powaws were the determined enemies of Christianity-the sachems being jealous of their authority, the priests of their gain; and hence they often laid plots for the destruction of this good man, and would certainly have put him to death, had they not been overawed by the power of the English. Some times the chiefs, indeed, thrust him out from among them, saying, "It was impertinent in him to trouble himself with them or their religior, and that should he return again, it would be at his peril." To such threatenings he only replied, "That he was engaged in the service of the Great God, and therefore he did not fear them, nor all the sachems in the country, but was resolved to go on with his work, and bade them touch him if they dared." To manifest their malignity, however, as far as was possible, they banished from their society such of the people as favoured Christianity; and when it might be done with safety, they even put them to death. Nothing, indeed, but the dread of the English prevented them from massacreing the whole of the converts; a circumstance which in-Moreover, thou shalt provide out duced some of them to conceal their sentiments, and others to fly to the colonists for protection.

by no means in vain. By means of his zealous and unwearied exertions, numbers of the Indians, in different parts of the country, embraced the gospel; and in the year 1651, a considerable body of them united together in building a town, which they called Natick, on the banks of Charles' river, about eighteen miles south-west from Boston. This village consisted of three long streets, two on this side of the river, and one on the other, with a piece of ground for each family. A few of the houses were built in the English style, but most of them were after the Indian fashion; for as the former were neither so cheap nor so warm, nor yet so easily removed as their wigwams, in which not a single nail was used, they generally retained their own mode of building. There was, however, one large house in the English style; the lower room was a great hall, which served for a place of worship on the Sabbath, and a school-house through the week ; the upper room was a kind of wardrobe, in which the Indians deposited their skins and other articles of value; and in one of the corners there was an apartment for good Mr. Eliot, with a bed and bedstead in it. Besides this building, there was a large fort of a circular form, palisadoed with trees; and a small bridge over the river, the foundation of which was secured with stone.

But, notwithstanding the opposition of the sachems and the priests, Mr. Eliot's labours were

As soon as the Indians had formed this new settlement, they applied to Mr. Eliot for a form of civil government; and as he imagined the Scriptures to be a perfect standard in political as well as in religious matters, he advised them to adopt the model proposed by Jethro to Moses in the wilderness:

of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens." Agree