Plymouth Rock in«iS6S. 
 
 In this article I shall use the term 
 Plymouth Colony loosely, as including 
 Martha’s \’ineyard and its adjacent 
 islands, not under the jurisdiction of 
 
 Massachusetts until the time of Wil- 
 liam and Mary. 
 
 I have already alluded to the fact that 
 the idea of doing something to Christian- 
 
 * I have consulted, in the preparation of this arti* 
 cle, mainly the following : — 
 
 Gov. Bradford’s History’ of Plimoth Plantation, 1856. 
 Winslow’s Good Newes from New England, 1624. 
 Winslow’s H>'pocricie Unmasked, 1646. 
 
 Mourt’s Relation, 1622. 
 
 Young’s Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1841. 
 Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702. 
 
 Mayhcw’s Indian Converts, 1727. 
 
 Prince’s Annals, 1736. 
 
 New England’s First Fruits, 1643. 
 
 The Light Appearing more and more unto the Per- 
 fect Day, 1651. 
 
 Strength out of Weakness, 1652. 
 
 Otis’s History of Barnstable. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year i§67, by the A^fERIC^y Tract Society, in 
 OiQce of the District Court of Mas^chusetts. 
 
 YOL. a. 25 
 
 BOlOtWOlTHf KtOP«n ^*5 
 Of TM€ WIK» TIIE0ti««4l> 
 MWaMTt Ik u 
 
 1 
 
386 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 ize the aborigial inhabitants of the soil 
 where they might have their Colony, en- 
 tered influentially into the thoughts and 
 actions of the Pilgrims in deciding to 
 leave Leyden for America. This is dis- 
 tinctly stated by Gov. Bradford, in his 
 History, where, after mentioning other 
 motives, he adds : — 
 
 Lastly, (and which was not least,) a great 
 hope & inward zeall they had of laying some 
 good foundation, or at least to make some 
 way thereunto, for ye propagating & advanc- 
 ing ye gospell of ye kingdom of Christ in 
 these remote parts of ye world ; yea, though 
 they should be but even as stepping-stones 
 unto others for ye performing of so great a 
 work. 
 
 Edward Winslow, in his Hypocricie 
 Untfiasked, declares that two prominent 
 considerations before their minds were, 
 
 (1) , to teach their oppressed brethren in 
 England how to relieve themselves, and, 
 
 (2) , to seek the conversion of the natives 
 of New England ; in these words : — 
 
 They [he is speaking of Robinson and 
 Brewster] I say, out of their Christian care 
 of the flock of Christ committed to them, 
 conceived, if God would be pleased to dis- 
 cover some place unto us (though in Amer- 
 ica), and give us so much favour with the 
 King and State of England as to have their 
 protection there, where wee might enjoy the 
 like liberty, and where, the Lord favouring our 
 endeavours by his blessing, wee might e.x- 
 emplarily shew our tender country-men by 
 our e.\ample (no less burthened than our- 
 selves) where they might live, and comTorta- 
 bly subsist and enjoy the like liberties with 
 us, being freed from anti-Christian bondage, 
 keep their names and nation, and not only 
 bee a meanes to enlarge the Dominions of 
 our State, but t!u Church of Christ also, if 
 the Lord have a people amongst the iCatives 
 ■whither hee should bring us, (Src. Hereby, 
 in their grave Wisdomes, they thought wee 
 might more glorifie God, doe more good to 
 our Countrey, better provide for our posterity, 
 and live to be more refreshed by our labours, 
 *^han ever wee could doe in Holland, where 
 
 George Morton states the case as fol- 
 lows, in his preface to the first publica- 
 tion Relation or lournall, etc.) made 
 of the progress of affairs at Ply- 
 mouth ; — 
 
 The desire of carrying the Gospell of 
 Christ into those forraigne parts, amongst 
 those people that as yet have no knowledge 
 nor tast of God, as also to procure vnto 
 themselves and others a quiet and comforta- 
 ble habytation ; weare amongst these things 
 the inducements unto these undertakers of 
 the then hopefull, and now experimentally 
 knowne, good enterprice for plantation in 
 New England, to set afoote and prosecute 
 the same, and though it fared with them, as 
 it is common to the most actions of this na- 
 ture, that the first attemps proue difficult, 
 as the Sequell more at large e.xpressvth, yet 
 it hath pleased God, eve° beyond our expec- 
 tation in so short a time, to give hope of let- 
 ting some of them see (though some he hath 
 taken out of thjs vale of tears) some grounds 
 of hope of the accomplishment of both 
 those endes by them, at first propounded. 
 
 Robert Cushman, in his Reasons and 
 Considerations touching the La-wfullness 
 of removeing out of England into the 
 parts of Atnerica, recognizes this prom- 
 inent end of their emigration, and em- 
 phasizes it thus : — 
 
 And first, seeing we daily pray for the con- 
 version of the heathens, we must consider 
 whether there be not some ordinary meanes 
 and course for vs to take to convert them, 
 or whether praier for them be only referred 
 to God’s extraordinarie worke from heaven. 
 Now it seemeth vnto me that we ought also 
 to endeavour and vse the meanes to convert 
 them ; and the means can not be vsed vnlesse 
 we goe to them, or they come to vs : to vs 
 they can not come, our land is full ; to them 
 we may goe, their land is emptie. 
 
 If the papers of John Robinson could 
 be recovered, doubtless some discussion 
 of this subject, marked by his wonted 
 thorough good sense, warm heart, and 
 great, reverent, and loving familiarity with 
 the Scriptures, would be found among 
 
 f- 
 
 
 •ere. 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS IN THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. 387 
 
 them. The tone of that discussion may 
 be inferred from the following extract 
 from a letter which he wrote to the 
 church at Plymouth, over date of 19th 
 Dec., 1623, after the news of the killing 
 of Wituwamet, Peeks not, and other con- 
 spirators at IVessagusset, by Standish 
 and his men, had reached Leyden. 
 
 Concerning ye killing of those poor In- 
 deans, of which we heard at first by repute, 
 and since by more certaine relation, oh ! how 
 happy a thing had it been, if you had con- 
 verted some, before you had killed any. . . 
 Upon this occasion let me be bould to ex- 
 horte you seriously to consider of ye dispo- 
 sition of your Captaine [Myles Standish] 
 whom I love, and am persuaded ye Lord in 
 great mercie and for much good hath sent 
 you him, if you use him aright. He is a 
 man humble and meek .amongst you, and 
 towards all in ordinarie cause. But now if 
 this be merely from a humane [/. e. human ; 
 that is, natural and not regenerate] spirite, 
 there is cause to fear that by occasion, espe- 
 tially of provoc<ation, ther m.ay be wanting 
 yt tenderness of ye life of man (made after 
 God’s image) which is meete. 
 
 The minds of the Plymouth men were 
 so intensely and engrossingly occupied 
 — by constraint of the hard necessity 
 that came upon them — with the vital 
 struggle to maintain their own existence 
 against treachery in England and pov- 
 erty and privation here, that it was little 
 of thought or labor that they could 
 have spared at first for purely mission- 
 ary efforts among the savages that sur- 
 rounded them, even if the language 
 and temper of the Indians had invited 
 labor of that description. That tliey 
 did what they could would appear from 
 now and then an incidental scrap of tes- 
 timony. Bradford, writing of the au- 
 tumn of 1622, says that Squanto, — the 
 ll ’ampanoag who, having been carried 
 to England by Capt. George W.aymouth 
 in 1605, and there le.arned English, and 
 made his way back by some ship, had 
 been very serviceable to them as an in- 
 
 terpreter, — who had started with Gov. 
 Bradford on a voyage to go south round 
 the Cape for corn, but, they being blown 
 back into Chatham harbor by contrary 
 winds, was taken sick there — 
 
 of an Indean feavor, bleeding much at ye nose 
 (which ye Indeans take for a simptome of 
 death), and within a few d.iys dyed ther ; 
 desiring ye GovC to pray for him, that he 
 might goe to ye Englishman’s God in hea- 
 ven ; and bequeathed sundrie of his things to 
 sundry of his English friends, as remem- 
 brances of his love ; of whom they had a 
 great loss. 
 
 I do not know whether Prince has 
 preserved a tradition that remained in 
 the Colony, or whether it is only an in- 
 ference which he himself drew from the 
 above record of Bradford ; but he says, 
 in his Annals, “ it is to be hoped that 
 Squanto was converted.” 
 
 So Winslow, in his Good jYewes, inci- 
 dentally mentions his own labors with 
 Hobomok, a Wampanoag war captain, 
 and Corbitant, as he was on his way 
 home from Sowams to Plymouth with 
 them, in March, 1623. I quote from 
 the modernized spelling of Young: — 
 
 Observing us to crave a blessing on our 
 meat before we did eat, and after to give 
 thanks for the same, he asked us what was 
 the meaning of that ordinary custom. Here- 
 upon I took occasion to tell them of God’s 
 works of creation and preservation, of his laws 
 and ordinances, especially of the ten com- 
 mandments; all of which they hearkened 
 unto with great attention and liked well of ; 
 only the seventh commandment they ob- 
 jected against, thinking there were many in- 
 conveniences in it, that a man should be 
 tied to one woman ; about which we reasoned 
 a good time. Also I told them that what- 
 ever good things we had we received from 
 God, as the Author and Giver thereof; and 
 therefore craved his blessing upon what we 
 h.ad, and were about to eat, that it might 
 nourish and strengthen our bodies ; and 
 having eaten sufficient, being satisfied there- 
 with, we again returned thanks to the same, 
 our God, for that our refreshing, &c. This 
 
388 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 all of them concluded to be very well ; and 
 said they believed almost all the same things, 
 and that the same power that we called God 
 they called Kiehtan. Much profitable con- 
 ference was occasioned hereby, which would 
 be too tedious to relate, yet was no less de- 
 lightful to them than comfortable to us. 
 
 In the division of land at Plymouth 
 among the inhabitants, “as their lotes 
 were cast in 1623,” Hobo?nok is men- 
 tioned as sharing with the Mayflower 
 men, and his ground as having been that 
 “which lyeth betweene Jo. Howland’s 
 and Steuen Hobkinses ” {^Plymouth Col- 
 ony Records, Book of Deeds, i. 4]. There 
 is evidence that he resided there after 
 the English manner, and died a Chris- 
 tian among them, previous to 1642. I 
 suppose the following also, from N'ew 
 England's First Emits, which was 
 printed in London in 1643, to refer to 
 him (the drought mentioned was in the 
 summer of 1623): — 
 
 Many years since, at Plimmouth Planta- 
 tion, when the Church did fast and pray for 
 Raine in extreme Drought ; it being a very 
 hot and cleare sun-shine day, all the former 
 part thereof; an Indian of good quality, 
 being present, and seeing what they were 
 about, fell a wondering at them for praying for 
 raine in a day so unlikely, when all Sunne 
 and no clouds appeared ; and thought that 
 their God was not able to give Raine at 
 such a time as that ; but this poore wretch 
 seeing them still to continue in their Pray- 
 ers, and beholding at last that the clouds be- 
 gan to rise, and by that time they had ended 
 their Duty the Raine fell in a most sweet, 
 constant, soaking showre, fell into wonder- 
 ment at the power that the English had with 
 their God, and the greatnesse and goodnesse 
 of that God whom they served, and was 
 smitten with terror that he had abused them 
 and their God by his former hard thoughts of 
 them ; and resolved from that day not to 
 rest till he did know this great good God, 
 and for that end to forsake the Indians, and 
 cleave to the English, which he presently 
 did, and labored by all publique and private 
 meanes to suck in more and more of the 
 knowledge of God, and his ways. And as he 
 
 increased in knowledge so in affection and 
 also in his practice, reforming and conform- 
 ing himselfe accordingly : and (though he 
 was much tempted by inticements, scoffs, and 
 scornes from the Indians') yet could he never 
 be gotten from the English, nor from seek- 
 ing after their God, but died amongst them, 
 leaving some good hopes in their hearts that 
 his soule went to rest. 
 
 In the first article of this series (page 
 273) I said that the idea of what we now 
 understand by missionary labors, first 
 developed itself into practical working 
 shape in New England, in the labors of 
 John Eliot and his associates, in the work 
 at K^onantum, reaching its first preach- 
 ing in Oct., 1646. I desire to recall that 
 statement, as an error. I was misled 
 by authorities in whom I trusted, and 
 particularly by Gookin, who dates the 
 beginning of the Mayhews’ labors in 
 1648, or 1649; not, when that was writ- 
 ten, having myself examined the origin- 
 al sources in reference to that point. I 
 find the amplest testimony that Thomas 
 Mayhew was not only himself preach- 
 ing to the Indians in Martha’s Vineyard 
 (Capawack) before Mr. Eliot began to 
 preach to those at Nonantusn, but that 
 he already had an Indian eonvert, Hia- 
 coomes, who was at the same time able 
 to preach, and who did preach with him 
 with great acceptance. 
 
 MAYHEW’S SIGNATURE. 
 
 Thomas Mayhew was born in Eng- 
 land, and was the son of Thomas, who 
 had been a merchant in Southampton, 
 England, and who came over in 1631, 
 and was active in trade, first at Medford 
 and afterwards at Watertown, and who 
 obtained a grant of Martha’s Wneyard 
 in 1642, and was appointed governor of 
 the same. Thomas, junior, who had 
 been educated at Cambridge in England, 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS IN THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. 389 
 
 and who was immediately sent by his 
 father with a small company to settle 
 the island, was invited by that company, 
 when established at Edgartown, to be 
 their minister. His English flock being 
 small, and his heart anxious to do good, 
 his attention was attracted by the miser- 
 able condition of the natives without the 
 gospel ; and, with the rapid facility of a 
 young scholar and a good linguist (he 
 was then about twenty-one years of age, 
 and had “ attained no small knowledge 
 in the Latin and Greek tongues, and 
 was not wholly a stranger to the He- 
 brew ”), he soon acquired such a com- 
 mand of the Algonquin speech that he 
 could converse with ease with the Indians 
 around him. He labored assiduously to 
 win their confidence by friendly acts, and 
 to persuade them to listen to the eternal 
 truth. In 1643. before Eliot had more 
 than begun to learn the language, if he 
 had then begun, Mayhew rejoiced with 
 exceeding great joy in the clear hope of 
 his first convert, the good Hiacoomes. 
 His grandson. Experience lUayhew, 
 many years after related, by the help of 
 his grandfather’s manuscripts, the story 
 of these labors. From that narrative I 
 extract the following mention of these 
 first beginnings with this first inqui- 
 rer : — 
 
 Now, observing in this Hiacoomes a Dispo- 
 sition to hear and receive Instruction; ob- 
 serving also, that his Countenance was grave 
 and sober, he resolved to essay in the first 
 Place what he could do with him, and im- 
 mediately took an Opportunity to discourse 
 him ; and finding Encouragement to go on 
 in his Endeavours to instruct and enlighten 
 him, he invited him to come to his House every 
 Lord's day evening, that so he might then 
 more especially have a good Opportunity to 
 treat with him about the things of God, and 
 open the mysteries of his Kingdom to him. 
 
 Hiacoomes accepting his kind Invitation, 
 Mr. Mayhew used his utmost Endeavours to 
 enlighten him. And Hicuoomes seemed as ea- 
 gerly to suck in the Instructions given him, as 
 if his Heart had been before prepared by 
 
 God, and made good Ground, in order to a 
 due Reception of his Word sown in it : And 
 thus as a new-born Babe, desiring the sincere 
 Milk of the Word, that he might grow thereby, 
 he increased daily in knowledge ; and, so far 
 as could appear, grew in Grace also. 
 
 But Hiacoomes' thus conversing with, and 
 hearkening to the English, was soon noised 
 about among the Indians; and the news of it 
 coming to the Sachems and Pawwaws of 
 the Island, they were, as obscure a Person 
 as Hiacoomes was, much alarmed at it : and 
 some of them endeavoured with all their 
 Might to discourage him from holding com- 
 munication with the English, and from re- 
 ceiving any Instruction from them. But all 
 that these could say or do to this end was 
 to no Purpose ; for it seems that God, by 
 whom not many wise Men after the Flesh, 7 ior 
 many mighty, nor many noble, are called, had 
 by his special Grace effectually called him 
 out of Darkness into his marvellous Light ; 
 and having now had a Taste of that knowl- 
 edge of God and Christ, which is Life eter- 
 nal, he was resolved that nothing should hin- 
 der him from laboring after still higher at- 
 tainments in it 
 
 In this and the following year, 1645, Mr. 
 Mayhew went on with his Design of in- 
 structing his Hiacoomes, and several others 
 of the Indians, as he had Opportunity ; and 
 now Hiacoomes begins to be so far from 
 needing to be taught the first Principles of the 
 Oracles of God, that he becomes a Teacher of 
 others ; communicating to as many as he 
 could the Knowledge he himself had at- 
 tained : And some there were that now 
 began to hearken to him, yet seemed not to 
 be duly affected with the Truths taught by 
 him, and many utterly rejected them ; but 
 God now sending a general Sickness among 
 them, it was observed by the Indians them- 
 selves, that such as had but given a hearing 
 to the things by Hiacoomes preached among 
 them, and shewed any regard to them, were 
 far more gently visited with it than others 
 were ; but Hiacoomes and his Family in a 
 manner not at all. At this many of the In- 
 dians were much affected, for they evidently 
 saw that he who, for the sake of the Truth, 
 exposed himself to the Rage of his Enemies, 
 and such as adhered to him, fared better than 
 those that opposed both him and that, and 
 
390 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 being thus ."iflfected, many of the People de- 
 sired to be instructed by him ; and some 
 Persons of Quality, such as before despised 
 him, sent for him (as Cornelius for Peter) to 
 come and instruct them, and those about 
 them : so in particular did one Miohgsoo, af- 
 terwards to be mentioned. 
 
 And now the Indians began not only to 
 give some credit to the Truth by Hiacoomes 
 brought to them, but were also awakened 
 by what they had heard and believed, so as 
 humbly to confess their Sins, and be con- 
 cerned how they should obtaii) the Pardon 
 of them, and also to renounce their own 
 Gods and Pawwaws, and promise to serve 
 the true God only. 
 
 In 1644, having great encourage- 
 ment from this first case of the pow- 
 er of the gospel over the savage heart, 
 and being able now, from his famil- 
 iarity with their speech, to labor pri- 
 vately with the natives, but hopeless as 
 yet of any public access to them, on ac- 
 count of the opposition that would be 
 made thereto by the Sagamores and the 
 Pawwaws, Mr. Mayhew commenced to 
 visit them at their wigwams, and to use 
 all opportunities elsev/here. In this 
 Hiacoomes worked with him, and some 
 good seed was sown. But in 1646, the 
 effect of the sickness which is referred 
 to above was so marked in calling the 
 attention of the Indians to the gospel, 
 that two of the chiefs, Miohgsoo, above 
 named (or Myoxeo, as the name is writ- 
 ten elsewhere), and Tawanquatuck, sent 
 for Hiacoomes, and questioned him as to 
 all he knew “ in the wayes of God.” So, 
 in Mr. Mayhew’s words, written soon 
 after, — 
 
 He shewed unto them all things he knew 
 concerning God the Father, Sonne, and 
 Holy Ghost ; Myoxeo asking him how many 
 Gods the English did worship, he answered, 
 one God, whereupon Myoxeo reckoned up 
 about 37 principal gods he had, and shall I 
 (said he) throw away these 37. gods for one ? 
 Hiacoomes replied. What do you think, of 
 your self? I have throwne away all those, 
 and a great many more some years ago, yet 
 
 am preserved as you see this day ; you speak 
 true, said Myoxeo ; therefore I will throw 
 away all my gods too, and serve that one 
 God with you. Hiacoomes told them all, he 
 did feare this great God only, and also in a 
 speciall manner that the Son of God did 
 suffer death to satisfie the wrath of God his 
 Father, for all those who did trust in him, 
 and forsake their sinnes, and that the Spirit 
 of God did work these things in the hearts 
 of men, and that himself did feare this great 
 God only, was sorry for his sinnes, desiring 
 to be redeemed by Jesus Christ, and to walk 
 in God’s commandments ; this with many 
 truths more he shewed unto them. As Ad- 
 am's transgression, and the misery of the 
 world by it, and did conclude that if they 
 had such hearts as he, they should have the 
 same mercies. He reckoned up to them 
 many of their sins, as having many Gods, 
 going to Pawwaws; and Hieuoomes told 
 me himself, that this was the first time that 
 ever he saw the Indians sensible of their 
 sins ; formerly they did but hear it as a new 
 thing, but not so nearly concerning them, 
 for they wxre exceeding thankful, saying also, 
 now we have seen our sins. 
 
 They then became very anxious for 
 Mr. Mayhew “to give them a publick 
 Meeting, to make knowm to them the 
 Word of God in their own Tongue;” 
 and the Sagamore urged him, by saying, 
 “You shall be to us as one that stands 
 by a running river, filling many Vessels ; 
 even so shall you fill us with everlasting 
 knowledge.” He hastened to do so, and 
 made arrangements to give them a meet- 
 ing once a month, but at the end of the 
 first they desired it as often as once a 
 week, which was too frequently for his 
 convenience ; so they compromised at 
 length on once a fortnight. But with 
 the help of Hiacoomes it was arranged 
 that, with the Indian preacher on the 
 Sabbath, and the English at a week-day 
 lecture, a weekly audience of Indians 
 heard the gospel in the island, from that 
 time forth. The exact date in the year 
 1646 of the first of these public preach- 
 ings I have not found, but sundry cir- 
 cumstances point to the summer, or the 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS IN THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. 39 1 
 
 earliest of the autumnal months ; so that, 
 as Eliot’s first \nsit to Nonantum was on 
 the 28th October, 1646, I must think 
 that Mayhew has as decided a claim to 
 have preceded him in public preaching 
 in Algonquin, as he surely has to the 
 acquisition of the tongue, its private use 
 in missionary labors, and their first fruits 
 in the conversion and the co-labor of 
 Hiacoomes. 
 
 In the following year a general meet- 
 ing was held of all the Indians on the 
 island who were inclined to Christianity, 
 to talk it over and confirm and assist 
 one another ; in which twelve young men 
 took Sacochanimo, the eldest son of Ta- 
 'ivanquatuck, by the hand, saying they 
 loved him, and would go with him in 
 God’s way, while some of the elder sav- 
 ages encouraged them, and advised them 
 never to forget their pledge. The ne.xt 
 year, 1647, there was a greater conven- 
 tion, at which a mixed multitude were 
 present, some of whom were in doubt 
 about the truth of Christianity’, and some 
 denied it, and affirmed the power of the 
 Pawwaws to harm and kill. Hiacoomes 
 publicly defied that power, and his safety 
 in doing so much affected many. As 
 the result of the meeting, twenty-two In- 
 dians resolved to “ walk with God,” one 
 of whom was Mononequem, who after- 
 ward became the first native preacher at 
 Chilmark. 
 
 Mr. Mayhew redoubled his diligence 
 in view of all these encouragements ; 
 traveling over the island, lodging in their 
 smoky wigwams, and sitting up half the 
 night to tell them “ the antient stories of 
 God in the Scriptures ; ” and so great 
 was the success attending his labors, and 
 those of his faithful coadjutor, that by 
 October, 1651, there were one hundred 
 and ninety-nine men, women, and chil- 
 dren who had professed themselves 
 worshipers of the true God, and affiliated 
 themselves into a little company — not as 
 yet a church — of visible believers. And 
 now there were two meetings kept every 
 
 Lord’s Day, the one three miles, the 
 other eight miles, from Mr. Mayhew’s 
 home ; Hiacoomes teaching twice a day 
 at the nearer, and Monoiieqtiein at the 
 farther, both coming to Mr. Mayhew 
 every Saturday to study the subjects on 
 which they were to discourse next day, 
 and Mr. Mayhew himself delivering a 
 lecture at each place at some day in alter- 
 nate weeks. On the iith Jan., 1651-2, 
 Mr. Mayhew opened a school, which 
 began with an attendance of thirty-one 
 Indian children. In the spring of 1652, 
 the converted Indians, of their own ac- 
 cord, made a movement toward a church 
 estate, and Mr. Mayhew drew up a cov- 
 enant, which he often read and made 
 very plain to them ; which all with free 
 consent and thankfulness received. By 
 the end of October, 1652, after only six 
 years of this kind of labor, there were 
 two hundred and eighty -two Indians, 
 not counting young children, — but in- 
 cluding eight Pawwaws, — who had re- 
 nounced their heathenism, and joined 
 themselves to this band of praying be- 
 lievers. This labor was continued so 
 long as Mr. Mayhew remained in the 
 country, with constantly augmenting 
 power, until. Prince says, that “ by the 
 year 1657, there were many hundred 
 Men and Women added to the Christian 
 Society, of such as might truly be said to 
 be holy in their conversation ; and for 
 Knowledge, such as needed not to be 
 taught the first Principles of the Oracles 
 of God, besides the many hundreds of 
 lower and more superficial Professors.” 
 In this year, 1657, Mr. Mayhew, jr., now 
 only in the 37th year of his age, intend- 
 ing a short visit to England, to give a 
 more particular account of this great 
 work than he could by letters, and to 
 do what he could to guide the aid prof- 
 fered in the fatherland into wise chan- 
 nels, embarked, in the month of Novem- 
 ber, in the best of two ships bound from 
 Boston for London, of which one James 
 Garrett was master, in company with his 
 
392 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 wife’s own brother, an Indian preacher, 
 and three hopeful young scholars, John 
 Davis, Jonathan Ince, and Nathaniel 
 Pelham, and sailed bravely out of the 
 Bay, but ended his days and finished his 
 work somewhere on that great unknown 
 which has engulfed so many precious 
 lives. The ship never was heard of 
 after she was hull-down to the consort 
 that left the roadstead in her company. 
 But for many years after his departure 
 the mention of his name would make the 
 Indians of Martha’s Vineyard weep ; and 
 the very spot by the wayside where he 
 bade his flock his final farewell, as he 
 started for Boston to embark, was sor- 
 rowfully marked until all that dusky gen- 
 eration had passed away. 
 
 It must not be understood that there 
 were no obstacles to this wonderful and 
 blessed work. More or less of deter- 
 mined hatred there was, which some- 
 times, indeed, rose to the purpose of 
 deadly hostility. Soon after the begin- 
 ning of the public preaching of the 
 Word at Tawanguatuck’ s request, that 
 Saga 7 >iore, to use Mayhew’s own words, 
 “met with a sad trial, for being at a 
 Weare where some Indians were fish- 
 ing, where also there was an English 
 man present, as he lay along on a Mat 
 on the Ground asleep, by a little light 
 Fire, the Night being very dark, an In- 
 dian came down, as being ready fitted 
 for the Purpose, and being about six or 
 eight Paces off, let fly a broad-headed 
 Arrow, purposing, by all probability, to 
 drench the deadly Arrow in his Heart’s 
 Blood ; but the Lord prevented it ; for, 
 notwithstanding all the Advantages he 
 had, instead of the Heart he hit the Eye- 
 brow, which like a brow of steel turned 
 the Point of the Arrow, which, glancing 
 away, slit his nose from the Top to the 
 Bottom. A great stir there was pres- 
 ently, the Sagamore sat up and bled 
 much, but was through the mercy of 
 God not much hurt.” Mayhew adds, 
 “ The next Morning I went to see the 
 
 Sagamore, and found him praising God 
 for his great Deliverance, both himself 
 and all the Indians wondering that he 
 was alive. The Cause of his being shot, 
 as the Indians said, was for walking 
 with the English; and it is also con- 
 ceived, both by them and us, that his 
 Forwardness for the meeting was one 
 thing; which, with the Experience I have 
 had of him, gives me Matter of strong 
 Persuasion, that he bears in his brosv the 
 marks of the Lord fesus." 
 
 Thomas Mayhew, senior. Governor 
 and Patentee, who had followed his ju- 
 nior to the island in or about 1647, and 
 had done what he could to help his mis- 
 sionary labors by helping the Indians to 
 a wise administration of their civil affairs, 
 had thus been led to some little familiar- 
 ity with their language ; and when, in his 
 seventieth year, he found himself be- 
 reaved of a dear son by the same Provi- 
 dence which had left this flock of Chris- 
 tian Indians without a shepherd, unable 
 to procure another regular minister to 
 fill the place, he undertook the toilsome 
 work of perfecting himself in their diffi- 
 cult tongue, and thenceforth, as long as 
 he lived, — he lacked but six days of be- 
 ing ninety when he died, — it was his 
 habit to preach to the Indians one day 
 every week, sometimes traveling on 
 foot nearly twenty miles through the 
 woods to visit and address them. He 
 stimulated the Gay-Head Indians also 
 to receive the gospel, who had hitherto 
 stood aloof. About 1664, John Cotton 
 — son of John of blessed memory — came 
 to the island to preach to the English 
 at the east end, and, acquiring the In- 
 dian speech, also preached to the natives 
 for about two years, until, in 1667, he 
 accepted an invitation to be pastor to 
 the church at Plymouth. 
 
 With the slow-moving caution which 
 marked those days, and which compelled 
 John Eliot’s Natick Indians to delay 
 church organization until 1660, and all 
 the unreasonable people in both hemi- 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS IN THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. 393 
 
 spheres had with due deliberation con- 
 cluded that it would be safer to risk go- 
 ing forward than standing still, and a 
 good many of the candidates most inter- 
 ested had been received into the church 
 triumphant ; these Indian believers of the 
 Mayhews, — although, as Prince says, 
 “Now the Indians on the Isles of Mar- 
 tha's Vineyard and Nant2icket might 
 justly bear the Name of Christian; the 
 number of their adult on both these Isl- 
 ands being then about three thojtsand" 
 — had to wait until 22d August, 1670, al- 
 most a quarter of a century after the date 
 of the first converts, before they were 
 regularly embodied into a church estate, 
 with the right to receive the ordinances 
 from Hiacoomes and Tackanash, their 
 own pastors. Mayhew, senior, labored 
 on eleven years more. Even before he 
 died, his grandson John — five years old 
 when his father sailed away into eter- 
 nity — began to take his place, and did 
 a noble work until his early death in 
 16S8-9. Five years after, his son Ex- 
 perience took up that work and carried 
 it on until past fourscore ; while his son 
 Zechariah, in his turn, spent a life that 
 lacked less than twelve months of reach- 
 ing ninety — he died 6th March, 1806 — 
 in the same glorious toil. Can any mis- 
 sionary annals on earth parallel this rec- 
 ord, in one family, of five generations of 
 such laborers, adding up together a 
 term of service — although two died at 
 thirty-seven, and one did not begin till 
 he was threescore and ten — of at least 
 one hundred and eighty-five years ; and 
 together carrying along the gospel 
 among the Indians from its first dawn- 
 streak in 1642 clear into the present 
 century ! 
 
 Of the generally Evangelical quality 
 of these labors and their results we 
 have the amplest evidence ; although, 
 from the distance of the scene of their 
 performance from Boston, then, if never 
 since, the “ hub of the universe,” so far 
 as this part of it is concerned, they did 
 
 not receive so frequent and eulogistic 
 mention as those of Eliot and his im- 
 mediate associates. Experience May- 
 hew, in 1727, published a volume made 
 up from the manuscripts of his fa- 
 ther, grandfather, and great-grandfather, 
 supplemented by tradition and his 
 own memory and observation, entitled 
 Indian Converts; or, some aceount of the 
 Lives and Dying Speeches of a eon- 
 siderable nu 7 >iber of the christianised 
 Indians of Martha's Vineyard, m New 
 England; in which he gives accounts 
 more or less copious of thirty Indian 
 ministers, thirty-seven godly men not in 
 church office, thirty-nine religious wo- 
 men, and twenty-two pious children, — 
 128 in all, — who had given such evidence 
 of genuine conversion and earnest devo- 
 tion to the Saviour as to merit particular 
 mention. Two or three extracts, which 
 are all for which space can be spared, 
 will hint the flavor of their piety. 
 
 When Yotiohhumuh, a Gay-Head In- 
 dian, and one of the nobles of his tribe, 
 was dying, he was visited by Peter Oh- 
 quonhut, afterwards a preacher, and the 
 following dialogue took place, which was 
 preserved : — 
 
 Peter. You do believe there is a God ? 
 
 Yon. Yes, indeed, I believe that there is 
 a great God named yehorjah, and tliat he 
 created the world and all things in it. 
 
 Pet. Do you know that you have sinned 
 against this God who made you t 
 
 Yon. \'es, indeed I do. I know I have 
 committed many and great sins against him. 
 
 Pet. Are you sensible that for your sins 
 you deserve to be punished ? 
 
 Yon. Yes. I know that my sins have 
 deserved that I should be cast into hell, and 
 be there tormented for ever. 
 
 Pet. Have you then any hope of being 
 saved, and if so, by whom and how ? 
 
 Yon. I have been informed that God sent 
 his Son into the world to redeem and save 
 sinful men, and that such as come to him by 
 true Faith and Repentance are saved from 
 Wrath by him ; and on this I ground my 
 hope for salvation. 
 
394 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 Pet. Do you repent of your sins, and by 
 Faith come to Christ, since )’ou hope for 
 Salvation in this Way? 
 
 Yon. Yes, I do. I keep earning to Christ, 
 and I mourn for my sins, and entreat him to 
 pardon them, and cleanse me from them, 
 (and now bursting into tears he was not able 
 for some time to say anything more ; but 
 after a while he asked) : Had God but one 
 Son and no more ? 
 
 Pet. He had but one. He gave his only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
 him should not perish, but have everlast- 
 ing life. 
 
 Yon. Oh, the wonderful love of God ! that 
 having but one Son, he was willing to give 
 him to suffer and die for us miserable sin- 
 ners, that so we might live through him. 
 
 Here is a dying prayer of Jerusha Om- 
 pan, who died at Tisbury, at the age of 
 about 29, a maid, having refused several 
 offers of marriage, on the ground of her 
 interpretation of Paul’s words in i Cor. 
 vii. 34. The prayer was written down 
 in Indian, as it was overheard by her 
 father, and given to Mr. Mayhew ; — 
 
 I beseech thee, O my God, to pardon all 
 my sins before I die ; for I now know that 
 I shall not recover, and live any longer 
 in this World ; nor are my desires after any 
 of the things here below ; but I do most ear- 
 nestly crave thy pardoning Mercy, through 
 the death of thy Son Jesus Christ. 
 
 For verily thy Death, oh Christ, is suffi- 
 cient for the salvation of my soul from 
 Death, when the time of my death cometh. 
 And when I die, I beseech thee. Oh, my Re- 
 deemer, to receive my soul, and raise it up 
 to thy heavenly Rest. Thus have mercy on 
 me. Oh my God ; and then I know, when my 
 time ends in this world, I shall be exceeding 
 happy in thine House for ever. 
 
 And here are a few touching words 
 from a long account of little Joseph (a 
 son of Jacob Peag), who died at Chris- 
 tian Town, being but twenty-one days 
 more than four years old. I condense 
 Mayhew’s words ; — 
 
 The child asked his pious grandmother 
 
 “ Why people when they pray say ‘ God ’ 
 and ‘ Christ ; ’ are there two of them ? ” Yes, 
 said his grandmother, there are ; yea, indeed, 
 there are three. “ What,” said the child, 
 “ is the name of the other which ye speak 
 of?” “The Holy Ghost,” said the grand- 
 mother to him. “ Are there, then, three 
 Gods ? ” said the child to her. No, said the 
 grandmother ; there is but one God, yet that 
 one God is some ways distinguished into 
 Three, which is a mystery too deep for us to 
 understand. Upon the hearing of which an- 
 swer, the child fell to admiring of God as a 
 most wonderful Being, saying, O tamosnuksoo 
 Mannit, i. e., yea, God is very wonderful ! 
 
 At another time the child asked his grand- 
 mother “ whether Jesus Christ was really 
 God or not ; ” to which she replied, that he 
 was ; that he was God’s only Son, and 
 equally one with the Father, and further fa- 
 miliarly instructing him in the Doctrine of 
 Christ’s Incarnation, and of his sufferings in 
 our stead to reconcile us to God. The child 
 seemed to understand, and be much affected, 
 expressing his admiration of the goodness 
 of this wonderful way of salvation for such 
 wicked creatures as men. 
 
 His father and mother often quarreling, he 
 one day told his grandmother that “ he was 
 weary of living in this world, by reason of 
 the sin and Disorder he saw in it, instancing 
 in particular the differences of his Parents, 
 telling her that he had rather die, and go to 
 the home of God, than live any longer in so 
 bad a Place as this.” So he often prayed 
 “ that he might be fitted for the Home of 
 God, and then go to it.” 
 
 When he was taken with his last sickness, 
 he earnestly desired his grandmother to lay 
 him into a chest without any lid, that was in 
 the house, that he might go to sleep in it ; 
 and as soon as he was laid down, looking up 
 with a smile he said, “You will very soon 
 see me laid in another chest [meaning a 
 coffin], whereinto I shall be put and 
 buried.” He very frequently thanked the 
 Lord for sending that sickness upon him, 
 and when his pain grew stronger he would 
 renew his Thanksgiving. Once he held up 
 his hand and beckoned with it, and when 
 asked why he did so, said he “ wanted God 
 to come and take him to his own House.” 
 Which, indeed, he soon did. 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS IN THE PLYMOUTH COLONY. 395 
 
 Two or three touches of the quality 
 of the utterances of these Indian minis- 
 ters may be interesting here. Here is 
 Hiacoovtes' funeral sermon at the death 
 of his colleague Tackanash, in January, 
 1683-4, as noted down by Mr. Mayhew, 
 who heard it : — 
 
 Here, said he, is my deceased Brother. 
 Paul said, this Body is sown in Corruption, 
 but it shall be raised in Strength. Now it 
 is a pitiful mean Body, but then it shall be a 
 glorious Body : yea, however this Body shall 
 be consumed, and be as if it had never been, 
 as it were turned into nothing ; yet the 
 Power of God shall bring it forth again, and 
 raise it up an excellent and glorious Body. 
 Yea, this Body is now a precious Body for 
 Example sake ; tho this Body is but one, 
 yet there are many People round about come 
 together to see it sown. But if a man should 
 go about to put one Grain of Wheat into 
 the Ground, there would not be so many 
 People present at the doing of it, as there 
 are at the interring of this one Body. And 
 as you see there are many People present at 
 the Burial of this Body, so there shall be many 
 people at the Resurrection also. But it shall 
 not be then as you see it is now ; now every 
 one is diversely appareled, some after one 
 manner, and some after another, but all after 
 a pitiful mean sort r but the Righteous at 
 the Resurrection shall have all one uniform 
 Glory. 
 
 Thus much I say as to that ; but I shall now 
 speak a short Word to the Relations of the 
 Person deceased, especially to his Wife and 
 Children. If you be desirous to see your 
 Father, seek your Father ; for your Father 
 went before you in every good Work, there- 
 fore seek your Father in every good Work, 
 and you shall find your F'ather again ; for 
 God’s Mercies are exceeding great. 
 
 Having finished his Speech, saith the -wri- 
 ter thereof, they proceed to their Work (viz. of 
 filling up the Grave), and this good Man stand- 
 ing by, I heard him say. This is the last Work 
 man can do for him ; the next Work God him- 
 self 'will do. Which Words he often repeat- 
 ed ; and further adds, that when this good 
 Father spoke of the Resurrection, he uttered 
 himself with such Fervency and Confidence 
 
 as would have become one who had himself 
 actually been the Dead raised. 
 
 Here is a bit of a prayer of Jonathan 
 Amos, which Mr. Mayhew heard and 
 wrote down. It was made at a fast in 
 time of extreme drought. He said : — 
 
 O Lord, we beseech Thee that Thou 
 wouldest not over-long delay to give «s a 
 gracious Answer to our Requests : We In- 
 dians are poor miserable Creatures, and our 
 Faith is exceeding weak ; if therefore Thou 
 shouldest long delay to answer us, we should 
 be apt to be stumbled and discouraged : we 
 therefore entreat Thee to answer us speedily. 
 
 Mayhew says the words were scarcely 
 out of his mouth, before there appeared 
 a cloud rising, which soon brought a 
 plentiful shower. 
 
 Japheth Hannit had a remarkable 
 history. He was the child of Pamchan- 
 nit and Wuttuniinohkomkooh, whose 
 birth is connected with the incident re- 
 lated by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, 
 under the heading of “The unknown 
 God wonderfully making himself known 
 to a poor Pagan,” which has such an 
 interesting relation to one of the great 
 questions of Natural Theology. The 
 facts, related in the most careful and au- 
 thentic manner by Mayhew, are briefly 
 these : — 
 
 Pamchannit (a Chilmark Indian of 
 high caste) and his wife had had five chil- 
 dren, and buried every one within ten 
 days of their birth, notwithstanding all 
 that the Pawwaws could do to help 
 them. A sixth — this Japheth — was 
 born a short time before the coming of 
 the English to the Vineyard ’(about 
 1638). The mother, greatly distressed 
 by the fear of losing this child also, and 
 utterly despairing of help from any 
 means formerly tried, as soon as she 
 was able, — which was within the fatal 
 ten days after his birth, — with a sorrow- 
 ful heart wrapped him in her mantle and 
 went out into the woods that she might 
 
396 
 
 THE SABDATH AT HOME. 
 
 there weep out her sorrow. While 
 weeping there and bewailing the insuffi- 
 ciency of human help, it was powerfully 
 suggested to her mind that there is 
 some unseen Power who created the 
 child, and who could, if he pleased, pre- 
 serve its life. And so she poured out 
 her soul in entreaties to that unknown 
 God, that he would spare her baby’s 
 life. The infant passed the dreaded 
 period in safety. She accepted the fact 
 as an answer to her prayer, and in the 
 gladness of her heart she dedicated the 
 child to this unknown God, who, as she 
 firmly believed, had spared its life. 
 When, five or six years after, she heard 
 of Mayhew, and the new gospel which 
 he preached, she said at once, “that 
 God of his is the God who saved my 
 child’s life, and to whom he belongs ; ” 
 and she and her husband hastened to 
 hear the good news in full, and were 
 among the earliest converts. Japheth 
 was sent to school, and so trained that 
 in good time — himself a believer — he 
 was called to the ministry’, being the 
 third pastor of the Indian church. 
 
 Possibly the peculiarity of his own 
 early history may have had some influ- 
 ence upon his mind, but I find a very 
 neat answer given by him to an over- 
 zealous brother, who had been a teacher 
 to 'Japheth and other Indians, and who 
 subsequently changed his views on some 
 important points, and felt it his duty to 
 labor with him, to bring, him to accept 
 the “ new light.” To whom Japheth re- 
 plied : — 
 
 You know. Sir, that we Indians were all 
 in Darkness and Ignorance before the Eng- 
 lish came among «s, and instructed us, and 
 that your self are one of these English men 
 by whom we have been taught and illumina- 
 ted. You taught us to read, and instructed 
 us in the Doctrines of the Christian Reli- 
 gion which we now believe, and endeavour 
 to conform our practices to. And when. 
 Sir, you thus instructed us, you told us that 
 it may be there would shortly false Teachers 
 
 come among us, and endeavour to pervert 
 us, or lead us off from our Belief of the 
 things wherein we had been instructed ; but 
 you then advised us to take heed to our- 
 selves, and beware that we were not turned 
 aside by such Teachers so as to fall into the 
 errors into which they would lead us. And 
 now, Sir, I find your Prediction true ; for 
 you your self are become one of these Teach- 
 ers you cautioned us against : I am therefore 
 fully resolved to take your good Counsel, 
 and not believe you, but will continue stead- 
 fast in the Truths wherein you formerly in- 
 structed me ! 
 
 When Japheth, at the age of about 
 seventy-five, was near his last hours, yet 
 having strength to write, he penned an 
 affectionate address to the people of his 
 charge, which has value of more than 
 one description, and which Mayhew ren- 
 ders into English thus : — 
 
 Is it not a most desirable thing for Per- 
 sons in this Life certainly to know that th«y 
 shall go to Heaven when they leave this 
 World ? 
 
 Therefore now take heed and consider 
 well what you do, and do not cast away such 
 Hopes as these for nothing, nor for a little 
 of the Pleasure of this World ; for it is cer- 
 tain that your carnal and worldly Actions 
 can’t give you Rest. Moreover, by these 
 you do bring all sorts of misery on your 
 selves ; yea, and not only so, but you do 
 thereby trouble others also, so long as you 
 remain unconverted. 
 
 Thus you trouble such as are Magistrates 
 to rule and govern you, and by their penal 
 Laws to punish you. 
 
 Next, you trouble such as are Pastors or 
 Ministers, while you hate to hear, believe, 
 and practice their Doctrine. While your 
 Sin and Misery is great, their Trouble and 
 Sorrow is so too here in this World. 
 
 You do also trouble the common People 
 by your Sins, by bringing on them various 
 Sicknesses and Pestilential Diseases, and all 
 other divine Chastisements. 
 
 You do also hereby hinder and disturb 
 the holy Peace of God’s praying Peo- 
 ple among the Churches, and make those 
 ashamed that are religious ; and you who 
 are stiil ungodly laugh at it. 
 
THE CHANGE IN MRS. GRANGERS VIEWS. 
 
 397 
 
 Alas ! Oh Lord, how very heavy is my 
 Grief on the account hereof! seeing we now 
 hear the Gospel preached to us, and have 
 the Light of God’s Word shining on us, and 
 he in Peace giveth his Sabbaths to us. 
 
 God is constantly calling of us to Repent- 
 ance, and has often repeated his Chastise- 
 ments on us, by grievous Sicknesses ; but, 
 this notwithstanding, how full of Wicked- 
 ness has he seen all our Towns ! for both 
 Men and Women, young Men and Maids, 
 do all delight in Sin, and do things therein 
 greatly grievous. 
 
 People should all of them now forsake their 
 Sins, and turn to God ; and they should 
 come to their Ministers, and make peniten- 
 tial Confessions of their Transgressions to 
 them, and entreat them to pray to God for 
 them : then would God forgive their Iniqui- 
 
 ties, and teach them to do that which is 
 right all the days of their Lives. 
 
 Then also would God teach them to know 
 Jesus Christ, and believe in him : and then 
 they should receive Remission of all their 
 Sins, and should be caused to walk accord- 
 ing to the Word of God to the End of their 
 Lives. Whoso heareth this, oh let it put him 
 on consideration I These are my last Words 
 to you. Now fare you all well. Amen. 
 
 The first Indian church under the 
 Mayhews’ labors soon became three, 
 and one was formed upon Nantucket. 
 In 1720, there were in the Vineyard six 
 small Indian villages, each supplied with 
 an Indian preacher, and together num- 
 bering some one hundred and fifty-five 
 families and some eight hundred souls. 
 
 (Concluded next month.) 
 
 I HE CHANGE IN MRS. GRANGER’S VIEWS. 
 
 BY GENESEE. 
 
 “ Cousin Helen,” said Laura Bowles, 
 as she bade the family good-night, and 
 ushered Mrs. Granger to her room, on the 
 night of her arrival for a Kmg-expected 
 visit, I am glad you have cbme at last. 
 It will be a real comfort to havfe,^^some 
 one to speak to that is not bigoted. 
 
 “ Who is bigoted, dear ” asked h^ 
 cousin, with a smile. / 
 
 “ Oh, well,” answered Laura, hesipt- 
 ing, “ you know that mother and Wary 
 have always lived in the countr/ and 
 they think little things are so c^eadful. 
 Now, for instance, — will you Mlieve it ? 
 — I have not dared to dan/e since I 
 came home from your hous/ ! Mother 
 does not actually forbid it, Jj'ut she looks 
 so grieved at the very id^a that I want 
 to, that I have been sayiqfg to myself, all 
 along, ‘ When Helen copies I shall have 
 somebody to take my part.’ ” 
 
 “ Laura dear,” said Mrs. Granger, 
 seating herself upon a lounge in front of 
 the cheerful open fire, and drawing her 
 cousin to her side, “you do not know 
 
 that I hav^ really chosen your part. I 
 have kei>rit to tell with my own lips.” 
 
 “ Cojfsin Helen ! what do you mean ? ” 
 said ^aura. 
 
 yT I have chosen your Saviour for my 
 ^viour,” replied IMrs. Granger, bend- 
 /Ing forward to kiss her, with eyes bright- 
 ened both by a smile and a tear. 
 
 This was unexpected news. Laura’s 
 milKl had been preoccupied by so differ- 
 ent a r^eme that it took her a moment 
 to recoO^t herself. “ Cousin Helen, 
 I’m so surpf<ised ! ” was her only rejoin- 
 der. '\, 
 
 “ I am sure ydu^’ll be glad, Laura. I 
 never knew what peace was before. 
 Even last winter, in all our gayeties, I 
 was sick of them, and longed for some- 
 thing satisfying. I knew there was a 
 better life, for my dear mother had 
 taught me the truth. But I wandered 
 from it till I was weary, and then Jesus 
 found me and brought me home.” 
 
 Laura’s heart began to wake up. 
 “ Dear Helen, how delighted I am ! ” 
 
398 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 said she. “ Now we shall feel exactly 
 alike.” 
 
 “ 1 hope so. Certainly, I see things 
 very differently.” 
 
 “ Such things as I have spoken of? ” 
 asked Laura, nervously. 
 
 “ Everything ! At first the Lord 
 seemed to be so close by my side, 
 laying his hand upon my head, and 
 speaking to my very heart, that I hardly 
 noticed things about me. I suppose 
 I went on as usual externally. I went 
 to the first party to which I was invited 
 afterward, as a matter of course, because 
 James wished it ; but I never can tell 
 you how I felt when I stood up for the 
 first dance. It seemed such an empty 
 show, — so hollow and vain ; and I had 
 such a vision of God and my dear Sav- 
 iour ! His sweetness, his glory and 
 grace overwhelmed me. I could not 
 take a step. IMy heart went out in un- ^ 
 speakable pity to all that thoughtless 
 company rejecting Christ, for I coul^ 
 not see a single Christian among thejn. 
 
 I wanted to stop the music and ytell 
 them that the Lord was there, ready to 
 save them. I slipped out of the set, 
 and my husband took me into a side- 
 room and went for water, thinking I was 
 faint. When he came back, /I don’t 
 know what I said, but he tunied pale 
 at my words. We went home, and I 
 told him that henceforth I must seek 
 the society of those that lov;ed my Sav- 
 iour, except where I could /bope to win 
 others to him. It made fiim perfectly 
 miserable. ‘ There’s an /end of all my 
 pleasures,’ he cried ; ‘ you’ll leave me 
 and join the church, I , Suppose.’ ‘ No, 
 James,’ I said, ‘ I shall leave you ; 
 
 I shall take you along ! ’ God helped 
 me in those days, I am sure, for words 
 that I never thought of before were put 
 into my mouth. We talked all the time 
 we could get, night and day, except 
 when we read the Bible and prayed ; 
 and it wasn’t a fortnight before he gave 
 himself up to Christ Oh, how good 
 
 God was, not to keep me waiting, but tc 
 make us one in him, almost from the 
 first ! Now we agree entirely about all 
 these things. Our happiness is wonder- 
 ful.” 
 
 The glow and fervor of her cousin’s 
 feeling made Laura conscious that she 
 could give but a cold response. She 
 remembered Jier first love, and felt thal 
 she had lost^t “ I am cold and worldl) 
 now,” thoi^ht she ; “ is it possible thai 
 my chan^ of opinion and conduct has 
 dulled and deadened my religious life 
 and co?t me the loss of this pure joy i 
 I will fiot believe it ; such innocent in- 
 dulgences can do no harm, and I car 
 not/feturn to my old prejudices. I have 
 mqdntained that my dancing never hurl 
 and I will not give up that it 
 
 / Could Laura have foreseen, when pray- 
 ing in years past for her cousin’s con- 
 version, that these would be her first 
 and deepest reflections on hearing thal 
 her prayers were answered, she would 
 have been shocked. 
 
 “ And do you and your husband reall) 
 think now that it is wrong to dance ? ’' 
 was her inquiry. 
 
 “Wrong!” said Mrs. Granger; “1 
 don’t to ! I belong to Christ, and 
 he has bade me live for him. I want 
 to keep my time and my interest foi 
 that.” 
 
 “ But you know we must have recrea- 
 tion. Constant work is not right for s 
 Christian ; it disables him. We need 
 exercise and amusement ; and is there 
 any reason why it shouldn’t be dancing i 
 You remember your own arguments foi 
 it, — so beautiful, refining, innocent ; sue! 
 a natural way of entertaining company, 
 with music and merriment.” 
 
 “ Ah, Laura dear, forgive me. Ever 
 then I very well knew that I was look- 
 ing from a worldly point of view. Tak- 
 ing for granted that an irreligious life is 
 right, as I then did, all I said about 
 dancing was true. I was well aware 
 
WAITING. 
 
 271 
 
 no comfort in it. They came to a thor- 
 ough conviction that as a church they 
 certainly were not seeking first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, 
 and that they ought not to expect bles- 
 sings, either temporal or spiritual, while 
 such a state of things continued. 
 
 They then took a solemn resolution 
 to try various methods for tlie reviving 
 of their interest in the prayer-meeting, 
 and especially determined to spend time 
 and effort for it, as they would for any 
 other object which they intended should 
 succeed. They did not expect a profit- 
 able and interesting lecture season un- 
 less they made effort and sacrifices, 
 procured good speakers, and made sure 
 that the people would attend. He said 
 he should never forget what one man 
 said to him while the talk was going on. 
 
 “ Mr. K , if you had taken Iralf the 
 
 pains to get me to the prayer-meet- 
 ing that you did to that course of \ec- 
 tures last winter, perhaps I should have 
 been a Christian by this time. Do you 
 think that we who look on from the out- 
 side can not tell what a man is most 
 interested in, whatever his professions 
 may be ? ” 
 
 One of the gentlemen here said he 
 thought it would be an excellent thing 
 
 for ministers to preach a common-sense 
 sermon on the actual meaning of Christ’s 
 command, “ Seek first the kingdom of 
 God,” and then put the people upon as- 
 certaining, each man for himself, in a sta- 
 tistical way, how much time he gives to 
 the Lord in a week in prayer, private, 
 family, and social, and what comparison 
 could be instituted between his efforts 
 for the advancement of Christ’s cause 
 and his efforts in other directions. In 
 the light of covenant vows the results 
 would be startling. 
 
 Mr. L said that in their meeting 
 
 each member selected a passage of 
 Scripture for himself and made it a mat- 
 ter of study and thought during the 
 week. At the prayer-meeting he spoke 
 of it. “You would think,” he said, “that 
 very little could be gathered of good in 
 so short a time ; but it is really surpris- 
 ing how much can be said in five min- 
 utes if the subject has been in mind 
 several days.” 
 
 The time was growing short, and there 
 was still evidently much more to be 
 said. At ten o’clock no one present 
 was willing to end the matter, and future 
 consultations were determined on. A 
 fervent prayer was offered that good 
 might follow, and we separated. 
 
 WAITING. 
 
 BY L. V, P. 
 
 Not with hanging hands and' idle shouldst thou wait, 
 / Nor with clasped hands and lifted meet thy fate ; 
 
 But thy life in strong endeavor should be spent ; 
 God’s great works to greatest workers he has sent. 
 
 Does thy task seem small and trivial to thy soul. 
 And do fetters uncongenial thee control t 
 
 Oh! believe it does not matter, '■'■then" or now. 
 When or what or where we labor, only how. 
 
 And His blessing will be given, if we ask, 
 Sanctifying every burden, every task. 
 
 “ Go up higher” is not breathed to every one ; 
 But a sweeter word is spoken, his “ Well done.” 
 
272 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE INDIANS OF 
 THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY* 
 
 BY REV. HENRY M. DEXTER, D. D. 
 
 NONANTUM HILL, NEWTON, MASS. 
 
 It is susceptible of historical demon- 
 stration that modern missions, in their 
 evangelical sense, owe their origin to the 
 Congregational churches of New Eng- 
 land. The work of missions, in this view, 
 may be defined to be “ the forth-going, 
 organized endeavor to preach the gos- 
 pel to every creature.” This definition 
 
 * Besides the histories natural to be consulted in 
 the preparation of this article, I desire to make spe- 
 cial acknowledgment of indebtedness to the follow- 
 ing works : — • 
 
 New England’s First Fruits. London, 1642. 
 
 The Day Breaking, if not the Sun Rising, of the 
 Gospell with the Indians in N. England. London, 
 164S. 
 
 The clear Sunshine of the Gospel breaking forth 
 opon the Indians in New England. London, 1648. 
 
 The Light appearing more and more toward the 
 perfect Day; or, A further Discovery of the present 
 State of the Indians in New England. London, 1651. 
 
 throws out of all account what are com- 
 monly called Catholic missions ; for they 
 preach X\\c gospel to no creature. Far 
 be it from our charity to doubt that God 
 may have loved and blessed some of the 
 Jesuit laborers, and some of their con- 
 verts ; but far be it from our honesty to 
 believe that conversion from the wor- 
 
 Strength out of Weakness ; or, a glorious Manifesta- 
 tion of the further Progresse of the Gospel amongst 
 the Indians in New England. London, 1652. 
 
 A further Account of the Progresse of the Gospel 
 amongst the Indians in New England, etc. Lon- 
 don, 1659. 
 
 The D>dng Speeches of several Indians. Cam- 
 bridge, 1665. 
 
 Life of John Eliot, by C. Francis, D. D. New 
 York, 1856. 
 
 RelatioTts des Jesuites. Ed. 1858. 
 
 Massachusetts Historical Collections First Series, 
 vol. I. 1792. 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 2/3 
 
 ship of one idol to that of another with a 
 better name, with prayers to the saints 
 in place of libations to the gods, holds 
 any such relation to the progress of 
 Christ’s cause as to claim serious con- 
 sideration here ; or that Xavier’s bap- 
 tism of ten thousand Indians in a sin- 
 !;le month at Travancore was a true sa- 
 crament, recognized in heaven. 
 
 Luther spoke pitifully of the “ misery 
 of pagans and Turks ; ” but he and Cal- 
 vin were so absorbed in the endeavor 
 to drive heathenism out of Christian- 
 ity, that they seem to have had little 
 direct conception of Christianity as de- 
 signed to drive heathenism out of the 
 earth. 
 
 It has been usual to claim that mod- 
 ern Protestant missions had their first 
 exemplification in 1557, when Villegag- 
 non, a Knight of Malta, under the pat- 
 ronage of Henry II. of France, founded 
 a French colony in Brazil. But a closer 
 examination of the transaction, as re- 
 vealed in the letters of an eye-witness, 
 makes clear the fact that it is an error 
 to speak of this expedition as a mission 
 to the southern continent, — indeed, that 
 all pretense of missionary zeal in the 
 transaction was a miserable cheat. It 
 has been affirmed, also, that, at about 
 the same date, Gustavus Vasa of Swe- 
 den founded a mission among the Lapps ; 
 but examination reveals the fact that his 
 process was so contaminated by the policy 
 of Rome — the people being constrained 
 by royal edict to assemble systematically 
 at certain periods to pay their taxes and 
 to be Christianized, as a pure matter of 
 business — as to make it clear that in 
 this, as in the other, there was no intelli- 
 gent, tender consideration of the hea- 
 then as simply lost sinners, like other 
 men, stumbling upon the dark moun- 
 tains of their idolatry, needing to be 
 saved by grace, and salvable by the 
 same grace, and the same processes of 
 it, which save men in Christian lands. 
 
 This idea, that pagans are sinners, in 
 
 VOL. II. iS 
 
 kind the same as the sinners of Christian 
 households and congregations, who may 
 be reached and blessed by the earnest 
 preaching of the same cross which is 
 the hope of Christendom ; that all the 
 brutality of their paganism may be over- 
 come by patient prayer and labor ; that 
 it ought to be so overcome, and that 
 God will not hold his people guiltless 
 if they do not undertake so to over- 
 come it, until his kingdom shall come, 
 and his will be done everywhere in earth 
 as ft is in heaven, — tliis idea first devel- 
 oped itself into practical working shape 
 in New England, and in the Massachu- 
 setts Colony, in the labors of John Eliot 
 and his associates among the Algon- 
 quins, whom they found roaming the soil 
 on which they settled. I say it first 
 de'oelopcd itself . In a subsequent paper 
 I propose to show that it first uttered 
 itself, as a desire and a purpose, among 
 the founders of the Plymouth Colony, 
 and was one of the most prominent of 
 the considerations which decided them 
 to leave Leyden for New Phmouth. In 
 the sharpness of their intense struggle 
 against their bitter enemies over sea, 
 and with the very elements, and with na- 
 ture herself, — their res dura ctregni novi- 
 tas , — the Pilgrims found, at first, little 
 leisure, however, and had little strength, 
 for anything approximating distinctively 
 missionary effort. Several instances of 
 the hopeful conversion of Indians, in- 
 deed, cheered them from time to time, 
 and made them feel that New-England 
 paganism would not prove too hard for 
 the Lord. Sagamore John, of the Mass- 
 achusetts, near Watertown, was very 
 favorably impressed with the English re- 
 ligion, and more than once resolved and 
 promised to embrace it, but was kept 
 back by fear of the scoffs of his tribe ; 
 yet whei) he was dying he gave his only 
 child to John Wilson, to be brought up 
 a Christian. A number of Indian chil- 
 dren, also, were received into the homes 
 of the English, learned to speak our 
 
274 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 language, became devout hearers of the 
 word, and seemed to give evidence of 
 both the fear of God and the love of 
 Christ. IVequash, a famous chief, was 
 much impressed by the way in which 
 the Englisli routed the Pequots, think- 
 ing he could discern how “one English- 
 man, by the help of his God, was able 
 to slay and put to flight an hundred In- 
 dians,” and grew very anxious to come 
 to the knowledge of the Englishmen’s 
 religion. Among the earliest settlers 
 of Connecticut he became acquainted 
 with the first principles of the gospel, 
 repented of his sins, put away all his 
 wives but the first, became in an emi- 
 nent degree meek and patient, and be- 
 gan to warn and exhort and entreat his 
 fellows to the knowledge of the true 
 God. This course made him so unpop- 
 ular with his tribe that some of them 
 gave him poison. On his death-bed the 
 Indians tried to persuade him to call 
 the Pawaw ; but he replied, “ If Jesus 
 Christ say Wequash shall live, then We- 
 quash shall live j if Jesus Christ say 
 Wequash shall die, then Wequash is will- 
 ing to die.” And die he did, bequeath- 
 ing his only child to English care and 
 love. 
 
 These few incidents, with others like 
 them, besprinkling the first twenty years 
 of English occupation of the soil of 
 these new colonies, produced a deep im- 
 pression upon the minds of the devout 
 members and elders of the New-Eng- 
 land churches, and particularly upon 
 that of John Eliot. Born at Nasing, in 
 Essex, England, in 1604, educated at 
 Cambridge, coming to this country in 
 1631, at the age of twenty-seven, in No- 
 vember of the following year he became 
 at Roxbury the teacher of a little flock, 
 many of whom had followed him from 
 England on the promise that he would 
 hold that relation to them. He was a very 
 simple-hearted, sincere, earnest laborer 
 in the cause of Christ ; and it was not 
 long before his attention was attracted 
 
 to the Indians with whom he came in 
 contact, and he felt a special longing 
 awakened within him to be able to lead 
 them to the Saviour. The first step in 
 this direction was to learn their language. 
 On looking round he soon found an In- 
 dian born on Long Island, who had been 
 taken prisoner in the Pequot war, who 
 was then living with Mr. Richard Cali- 
 cott, of Dorchester, and had learned to 
 read English. Taking him into his 
 family, Eliot soon taught him to write, 
 and, in return, gathered from him the 
 Indian words correspondent to our own, 
 with some rude idea of the construction 
 of the tongue, and by constant intercourse 
 with him gradually became sufficiently 
 conversant with the vocabulary and gram- 
 mar of the language to be able to translate 
 into Indian the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten 
 Commandments, and various texts, be- 
 sides short exhortations and prayers. The 
 task was Herculean. The language had 
 no affinity with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
 or any other language that he knew. 
 He had to work in the dark, with noth- 
 ing in the way of grammar or analysis 
 to help him. He was obliged to begin 
 by noting with microscopic exactness 
 the differences between the English and 
 the Indian modes of constructing the 
 same simple sentences, until he got 
 some clew to the Algonquin method of 
 inflection and expression. Having once 
 got hold of an idea thus, by pursuing it 
 through all possible variations he was 
 able at last to generalize into theories 
 and rules, which, with many failures, by 
 perseverance eventually led to an intel- 
 ligible result. He is supposed to have 
 begun this labor as early as 1643 or 
 1644, when he was nearly forty years of 
 age. And, with all the enthusiasm and 
 skill which he brought to bear upon it, 
 he had not acquired sufficient skill in the 
 use of the language in the fall of 1646 
 to dare to offer prayer in it in the hearing 
 of the Indians themselves. Still, he made 
 such progress as greatly to encourage ' 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 2/5 
 
 his heart ; and he thoroughly found out 
 the truth of the maxim which, with 
 beautiful simplicity, he afterwards in- 
 scribed at the end of his Indian gram- 
 mar : “ Prayer and pains, through faith 
 in Christ Jesus, will do anything.” 
 
 In the very beginnings of the Massachu- 
 setts Colony it had been recognized as 
 one great end of the plantation to civilize 
 and christianize the aborigines of the 
 soil. Mathewe Cradock, governor of the 
 Company, wrote from London, to Endi- 
 cott, as early as Feb. i6, 1628, as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Wee trust you will not bee vnminclfull 
 of the mayne end of our plantacion, by indev- 
 oringe to bring ye Inciian.s to the knowledge 
 of the gospell ; weh yt it maye be speedier 
 and better effected, ye earnest desire of our 
 whole company is, yt you have diligent and 
 watchfull eye over our own people, that they 
 live vnbl.imeable and wth out reproofe, and 
 demeane themselves iustlye and courteous 
 toward ye Indians, thereby to drawe them 
 to affect our psons [persons] and consequent- 
 lye our religion ; as alsoe to endeavour to 
 gett some of theire children to traiyne up to 
 readinge, and consequentlye to religion, 
 whilest they are yonge ; herein to yonge or 
 olde to omitt noe good opportunitye yt may 
 tend to bringe them out of yt wocfull 
 state and condicion they now are in ; in wch 
 case our predecessors in this our land some- 
 tymes were, and but for ye mercye and 
 goodnes of our good God might have con- 
 tinued to this daye ; but God, whoe out of 
 the boundless ocean of his mercye hath 
 shewed pittie and compassion to our land, 
 he is al-suffitient, and can bringe this to 
 passe wch wee now desire in yt countrye 
 likewise. 
 
 So the first general letter of the gover- 
 nor and deputy of the New- England 
 Company for a Plantation in Massachu- 
 setts Bay, to the governor and council 
 for London’s Plantation in the Massachu- 
 setts Bay in New England, under date 
 of April 17, 1629, has the following : — 
 
 And for that the proppagating of the gos- 
 ple is the thing wee doe professe aboue all 
 
 to bee or ayme in settling this plantacion, 
 wee have bin carefull to make plenty-full 
 prvision of godly ministers, by whose faith- 
 full preaching, godly conversacion, and ex- 
 emplary lyfe, wee trust not only those of our 
 owne nation wil be built vp in the knowl- 
 edge of God, but also the Indians may in 
 God’s appointed tyme bee reduced to the 
 obedyence of the gosple of Christ. 
 
 The barrier of an utterly strange lan- 
 guage, and of one whose terms did 
 not invite spiritual thought to clothe 
 itself in them, was doubtless a chief 
 reason why, even with the encourage- 
 ment of the sporadic cases referred to, 
 little or nothing was formally attempted 
 for many years in the good direction 
 above indicated. The earliest entry 
 upon the records of the Colony of the 
 Massachusetts Bay which I have been 
 able to find, bearing upon this subject, is 
 the following, of date Nov. 13, 1644: — 
 
 Yt is ordered yt y= county courts in ye 
 jurisdiction shall take care yt ye Indians 
 resids in ye sevrall sheires shal be civilized, 
 and they shall have powr to take ordr from 
 time to time to have them instructed in ye 
 knowledge & worship of God. 
 
 This sounded well, but the Court doubt- 
 less soon found that, in all the circum- 
 stances of the case, it was easier said than 
 done. So, we find them, in October of 
 the following year, making another order, 
 thus : — 
 
 The court, being still mindfull of its duty, 
 doth endeavr, as much as in it lyes, yt all 
 means may be used to bring the natives to 
 y= knowledge of God & his wayes, & to civilize 
 ym as spedily as may be ; & yt some such 
 course may be taken as may cause ym to 
 observe these rules, its desired yt notice 
 may be given to ye reverend elders, in their 
 severall sheirs, of ye ready mind of ye cort, 
 upon mature deliberation, to enact what shal 
 be thought meete hereabouts, & of their de- 
 sires yt they would take some paines therein 
 & returne their thoughts about it to ye next 
 siting of ye genrall cort. 
 
2/6 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 On Nov. 4th, 1646, it was ordered 
 that two ministers be chosen by the 
 elders of the churches every year, “ to 
 make known ye heavenly counselle of 
 God among ye Indians in most familiar 
 manner, by ye helpe of some able inter- 
 preter ; ” and, on May 26th, 1647, ten 
 pounds was granted to Mr. Eliot as a 
 gratuity, “ in respecte of his greate pains 
 and charge in instructing ye Indians in 
 ye knowledge of God.” It came true, 
 thus, as Dr. Palfrey says, that “ the Gen- 
 eral Court of Massachusetts was the first 
 .Missionary Society in the history of 
 Protestant Christendom.” 
 
 In 1642, a little tract had been printed 
 in London by some friends of the Colo- 
 nies, entitled “ New England’s First 
 Fruits,” the first part of which was de- 
 voted to a narrative of “ the conversion 
 cf some, the conviction of divers, and 
 the preparation of sundry of the In- 
 dians ; ” and an endeavor was made to 
 interest the prayers of devout English- 
 men in the work of grace among them, 
 by a recapitulation of the cases of We- 
 quash and Sagamore John, of which I 
 have spoken, and a few others ; which 
 were enumerated “ as a little taste of the 
 sprincklings of God’s Spirit.” 
 
 It is evident that all eyes were turned 
 toward Mr. Eliot, and that there was a 
 general waiting for him, as incompar- 
 ably the best-qualified person in the Col- 
 ony to try his success as a preacher 
 and special laborer with the natives. 
 
 It was not until the 28th of Oct., 1646, 
 just one week before the last action of the 
 Court recorded above, that he felt himself 
 ready to begin ; and, after previous ap- 
 pointment, with three com.panions, sup- 
 posed to have been Edward Jackson, 
 Daniel Gookin, and John Wilson, pastor 
 of the first church in Boston, he rode 
 out to Nonantum Hill, — a locality now 
 easily identified by its nearness to the 
 “ Nonantum Nurseries ” of Mr. Wm. E. 
 Strong, on the left of the roads leading 
 from Brighton to Newton Corner, — then 
 
 a favorite residence of the nearest Indians 
 to Boston, and on which was the wigwam 
 of IVadan, a “ chief minister of justice ” 
 of the tribes. “ Having sought God,” is 
 Eliot’s modest way of reference to that 
 unquestionably earnest wrestling with 
 the Spirit by which he had endeavored 
 beforehand to prepare himself for the 
 first essay of the novel work to which 
 he had so long looked forward. As this 
 first modern foreign missionary, with his 
 three friends, climbed the hill, they were 
 met by five or six of the chief of the 
 company dwelling there, with English 
 salutations of “ Much welcome ! ” and 
 were led to the principal wigwam, — 
 of IVaban himself, — where they found 
 an assemblage of Indian men, women, 
 and children, gathered to hear and 
 be taught. IVaban, let it be here 
 explained, had had much previous 
 thought of the English religion, and 
 had offered his son to the English to be 
 instructed by them. An eye-witness, 
 without doubt John Wilson, has left 
 on record a minute account of what 
 followed. The sendee was opened 
 with prayer in English, on account of 
 Eliot’s distrust of his command of the 
 Indian, and also because the speaker 
 desired, “with more freedom than he 
 could have in a strange tongue,- to pour 
 out his heart to God (in that place where 
 he was never called upon before) for 
 a blessing upon these new beginnings.” 
 Mr. Eliot then preached “an hour 
 and a quarter,” from Ezek. xxxvii. 
 9 : “ Prophesy, son of man, and say 
 to the 'wind. Thus saith the Lord God : 
 Come from the four -winds, O breath, 
 and breathe upon the slam, that they 
 may live." It is a curious fact, which 
 has quite the flavor of a special provi- 
 dence, that the word IVaban, the name 
 of the Indian in whose wigwam they 
 were assembled, signifies “ wind ; ” so 
 that Eliot’s text, although he after- 
 wards declared that the coincidence was 
 unthought of by himself in selecting 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 2’J'] 
 
 the passage for that use, sounded like a 
 personal message to his savage heart : 
 “ Prophesy, son of man, and say to fFa- 
 3 a»,” etc., etc. The explanation of the 
 choice of these words as the founda- 
 tion of this first deliverance is found 
 partly in the fact that Eliot wanted to 
 preach encouragement to himself while 
 he was preaching salvation to them. 
 But he soon left the immediate sugges- 
 tions of that Spripture, and went on to 
 tell the Indians of the true God, to ex- 
 pound to them the ten commandments, 
 and to explain the fact of God’s dis- 
 pleasure with those who break them. 
 Then, applying the subject, and pointing 
 out their personal sins, with much sweet 
 affection he preached unto them Jesus 
 Christ ; told them who he was, and what 
 he did, and how he was ready to be 
 their Saviour, but will come again to 
 judge the world in flaming fire ; told 
 them of the joys of heaven awaiting 
 those who repent and believe in Jesus, 
 and the terrors and horrors of wicked 
 men in hell ; persuading them to re- 
 pentance of sin, “and many things of 
 the like nature.” 
 
 Sermon being ended, he asked them 
 whether they had understood what he 
 had been saying ; and whether all, or 
 only some. Whereat they answered, 
 “with multitude of voyces, that they all 
 of them did understand all that which 
 was then spoken to them.” They were 
 then invited to propose inquiries, which 
 they did to the number of six, viz. : — 
 
 1. How may we come to know Jesus 
 Christ ? 
 
 2. Do Jesus Christ and God under- 
 stand prayers offered in Indian ? 
 
 3. Were Englishmen ever so igno- 
 rant of God as the Indians ? 
 
 4. How can there be an image of 
 God, such as is forbidden in the second 
 commandment ? 
 
 5. Whether, if the father be bad and 
 the child good, will God be offended with 
 the child ; because in the second com- 
 
 mandment it is said that he visits the 
 sins of the fathers upon the children. 
 
 6. How all the world is become so 
 full of people, if they were all once 
 drowned in the flood ? 
 
 It will convey some hint at once of 
 the general scope of the manner of ap- 
 proach adopted, and of the deeply evan- 
 gelical cast of the teaching, to glance a 
 moment at the way of answer to some 
 of these. 
 
 To the first, they were directed, as 
 they could not now read the Book of 
 God, (i) to meditate upon what had been 
 taught them, to go alone into the fields 
 and muse upon it ; (2) to pray to God, 
 and (with no need of long prayers, such 
 as the English offer) sigh, and groan, 
 and say. Lord, make me know Jesus 
 Christ, for I know him not ; (3) to re- 
 pent of and mourn over their sins. To 
 the second, they were told that since 
 God and Christ made Indians, they can 
 understand all their prayers, which was 
 illustrated thus : “ Wee bid them looke 
 upon that Indian basket that was before 
 them, — there was black and white 
 strawes, and many other things they 
 made it of ; — now, though others did 
 not know what those things were who 
 made not the basket, yet hee that made 
 it must needs tell all the things in it ; 
 so (wee said) it was here.” To the 
 fourth, this reply was made : “ Wee told 
 them that ‘ image ’ was all one picture, 
 as the picture of an Indian, bow and 
 arrowes on a tree, with such little eyes 
 and faire hands, is not an Indian, but the 
 picture or image of an Indian, and that 
 picture man makes, and it can doe no hurt 
 nor good. So, the image or picture of God 
 is not God, but wicked men make it, 
 and this image can doe no good nor 
 hurt to any man, as God can.” 
 
 The questionings of the Indians being 
 satisfied for the time, Eliot seized the 
 opportunity to put two or three inquiries 
 to them, “ and so take occasion thereby 
 to open matters of God more fully.” 
 
2/8 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 He asked them, first, “ whether they did 
 not desire to see God, and were not 
 tempted to think that there was no 
 God, because they can not see him.” 
 Some of them replied that they would 
 like to see him, but they had heard that 
 could not be, and they thought he could 
 be seen with the soul, though not with 
 the eyes. Then Eliot sought to deepen 
 that thought in their minds by suggest- 
 ing that if they saw a great wigwam, 
 they would not think raccoons or foxes 
 had built it, but some wise workman, 
 though they did not see him. So should 
 they believe concerning God, when they 
 saw the great world which he had made. 
 He asked them, second, whether it did 
 not seem strange that there should be but 
 one God, and yet he be “ in Massachu- 
 setts, at Conectacut [Hartford], at Qu/ni- 
 peiock [New Haven], in old England, in 
 this wigwam, in the next, everywhere.” 
 One of the gravest savages replied to this 
 that it did seem strange, — everything 
 which they heard seemed strange ; but, 
 still, they could believe it, because God 
 was so big. Look at the sun, said he ; the 
 same light from it which is in this wigwam 
 is in the next also, and the same light 
 which was here at Massachusetts was at 
 Quinipeiock also, and in old England as 
 well. The third and last question asked 
 was, whether they did not find something 
 troubling them within when they had 
 sinned, and what they thought would 
 comfort them against that trouble when 
 they die and appear before God. To 
 which they replied that they were troub- 
 led, and could not tell what should com- 
 fort them ; when Eliot went on to de- 
 scribe “ the trembling and mourning 
 condition of every soul that dies in 
 sinne, and that should be cast out of 
 favor with God.” 
 
 Three hours having thus been spent in 
 this “ meeting,” Eliot asked them if they 
 were not weary, to which they answered 
 no. But he thought it better “ to leave 
 them with an appetite,” so concluded 
 
 with prayer, gave the children some 
 apples, and the men some tobacco and 
 other trifles, which he had carried for 
 the purpose ; promised to come again 
 qnce a fortnight, it would seem, and, 
 at their request, to intercede with the 
 Court that they might have all the com- 
 pass of the hill upon which to build a 
 town together ; and so departed, with 
 many kind words. 
 
 Two weeks after, on ^ov. nth, 1646, 
 the same persons went again on the 
 same errand, and found a much lar- 
 ger company centering at the wigwam 
 of I'Fahan than they had met before. 
 This time they began with prayer in 
 English, then taught the children the 
 beginning of a catechism in Indian, 
 thus : — 
 
 Qites. Who made you and all the world ? 
 
 A us. God. 
 
 Ques. Who doe you looke should save 
 you, and redeeme you from sinne and hell ? 
 
 Alls. Jesus Christ. 
 
 Q:tes. How many commandments hath 
 God given you to keepe ? 
 
 A ns. Ten. 
 
 Next Mr. Eliot preached, beginning 
 thus: “Wee are come to bring you 
 good newes from the great God Almigh- 
 ty, maker of heaven and earth ; and to 
 tell you how evill and wicked men may 
 come to bee good, so as while they live 
 they may be happy, and when they die 
 they may go to God and live in heaven.” 
 Then he sought, by familiar description 
 and illustration, to make clear to them 
 the idea of God in his power, goodness, 
 and greatness ; then to explain his will, 
 and what he requires of all men, Indians 
 and Englishmen alike, in the ten com- 
 mandments ; then he told them how 
 angry God is with those who break any 
 one of those holy commandments, and 
 commit sin ; yet explained that, not- 
 withstanding, God has sent Jesus Christ 
 to die for men’s sins, and to pacify God 
 by his sufferings in our stead and room 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 2/9 
 
 if we do but repent and believe the 
 gospel ; and that he would love the poor, 
 miserable Indians if now they sought 
 God, and believed in Jesus Christ, but 
 would pour out his wrath upon all 
 that stood out and neglected such a 
 great salvation. 
 
 Having preached “ the space of an 
 houre,” they were desired to propose 
 questions as before, which they were 
 very ready to do. The first inquiry 
 came from an old man, who asked wheth- 
 er it was not too late for such an old 
 man as he, who was near death, to re- 
 pent or seek after God. Another want- 
 ed to know how the English came to 
 differ so much from the Indians in the 
 knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, 
 seeing they all had at first but one Fa- 
 ther. A third asked. How may we come 
 to serve God ? A fourth was curious to as- 
 certain how it comes to pass that the sea- 
 water is salt, and the land-water fresh. 
 He was answered, “In the same way 
 that strawberries are sweet and cranber- 
 ries sour.” A fifth questioned. Why, if the 
 water is higher than the earth, does it 
 not overflow the earth ? A si.\th wanted 
 to know, if a man had stolen goods, and 
 the sachem does not punish him, nor by 
 any law is he punished, if he restore the 
 goods is not all well, and will not God 
 be satisfied ? 
 
 They being through, Eliot asked them 
 two questions, (i) What do you re- 
 member of what was taught you since 
 the last time we were here ? (2) Do 
 you believe that God is \tmisquantum~\ 
 very much displeased at the least sin in 
 your thoughts, words, or works ? To 
 the former they replied that he had 
 taught them wonderful things ; to the 
 latter they said, yes. 
 
 Having thus spent the hours until 
 night was almost come, Eliot prayed 
 “ for about a quarter of an houre togeth- 
 er” in their own Indian, that they might 
 get confidence that Christ understands 
 that language. Wilson seems to have 
 
 been irreverent enough to keep his eyes 
 open during this prayer ; and he says 
 that divers held up their eyes and hands 
 to heaven, all understanding the words ; 
 but he saw one hanging down his 
 head, with his rag before his eyes, weep- 
 ing. Wilson’s first impression was that 
 the poor fellow’s eyes were sore ; but, 
 watching him, he found that it was not 
 so, but that he was weeping violently ; 
 and after prayer was done he saw him 
 stealing away into a corner where he 
 could sob in secret. 
 
 Six observations were written down 
 as the result of these two labors at No- 
 nantum, viz. ; — 
 
 1. None of the Indians slept in ser- 
 mon, or derided God’s messenger. 
 
 2. There is more need of learning in 
 ministers who preach to Indians than in 
 those who preach to the English and 
 to gracious Christians, to answer hard 
 questions withal. 
 
 3. There is no need of miraculous 
 or extraordinary gifts in seeking the sal- 
 vation of the heathen ; for the Spirit 
 of God will work mightily upon their 
 hearts. 
 
 4. If Englishmen despise the preach- 
 ing of faith and repentance, the poor 
 heathen will be glad of it, and it shall do 
 them good. 
 
 5. The deepest estrangement of 
 man from God is no hindrance to his 
 grace. 
 
 6. It is very likely’, if God ever con- 
 vert any of these natives, that they will 
 mourn for sin exceedingly, and conse- 
 quently love Christ dearly. 
 
 A fortnight and a day after, Nov. 
 26th, 1646, Eliot went again (Wilson 
 not able to be with him), and found that 
 the Indians had built more wigwams 
 in the wonted place of meeting, so that 
 they could attend upon the word more 
 readily. The method of teaching seems 
 to have been much as before, and 
 many questions were asked, and some 
 difficulties which had arisen were solved. 
 
THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 2 So 
 
 On the following Saturday night the 
 Nonantum Indians sent an Indian of 
 their company, named IVawpas, to Mr. 
 Eliot's house in Roxbury, to offer him 
 his own son and three more little In- 
 dian children, — nine, eight, five, and 
 four years of age, — to be brought up by 
 the English, lest they should “grow 
 rude and wicked at home, and never 
 come to know God.” 
 
 There was evidence also from a young 
 Englishman who lodged in Waban's 
 wigwam on the night after this third 
 meeting, that IVaban “ instructed all his 
 company out of the things which they 
 had heard that day from the preacher, 
 and prayed among them ; and, awak- 
 ing often that night, continually fell 
 to praying and speaking,” etc. These 
 are named as tw'O of Waban's prayers, 
 — short but sweet : — 
 
 A manaotnai, 'Jehovah^ tahassen /neiagh. 
 
 Take away. Lord, my stony heart. 
 
 Cheehcsom, Jehovah, kekowhoghew. 
 
 Wash, Lord, my soul. 
 
 A fortnight, lacking a day, after, — Dec. 
 9, 1 646, — Eliot and his companions again 
 repaired to the hill of joy (Wilson sa)-s 
 7 ioonantomen means rejoicing, and they 
 named their town thus on account of 
 this significance) ; and the children hav- 
 ing been catechised, and that place in 
 Ezekiel touching the dry bones being 
 expounded, the Indians all offered their 
 children to be educated by the English ; 
 and the old way of questioning began. 
 Eliot asked one of them what sin is, 
 and got the answer, “ A naughty heart.” 
 An old man spoke of his fears that he 
 should go to hell, though he did try to 
 ke^ the Sabbath ; whereupon Eliot 
 tried to explain to them the way by 
 which sinners are justified through 
 Christ. Another complained that other 
 Indians reviled them, and called them 
 rogues, for cutting their hair in a modest 
 manner, as the English did ; wEereupon 
 
 they svere encouraged not to fear wicked 
 I ndians nor Pawaws, for that God would 
 stand by them. 
 
 “ As soon as ever the fierceness of 
 the winter w'as past,” these missionary 
 labors were resumed with energy. Mr. 
 Shepard, of Cambridge, Mr. Dunster, 
 President of the College, and Mr. Allin, 
 of Dedham, took great interest in them ; 
 and the warm-hearted Christians of the 
 Colony were greatly encouraged to look 
 forward to the Christian civilization of 
 the Indians as a highly probable event. 
 The Court took measures to supply land 
 to such Indians as were willing “ to live 
 in an orderly way.” The magistrates 
 were directed to have an Indian Court 
 held, “ once every quarter, at such place 
 or places where the Indians did ordina- 
 rily assemble to hear the word of God ; ” 
 and the Indian chiefs were invited to 
 bring any of their own people to these 
 Courts, and to “ keep a Court of them- 
 selves once every month.” At that ses- 
 sion of the Synod of 1646-48 which 
 was held in June, 1647, Eliot gathered 
 together “a great confluence of Indians 
 from all parts,” and delivered an Indian 
 lecture ; and what we should call a great 
 missionary-meeting was held, which did 
 “ marvelously affect all the wise and 
 godly ministers, magistrates, and people, 
 and did raise their hearts up to great 
 thankfulnesse to God.” 
 
 Eliot preached at Neponset (Dorches- 
 ter), in the wigwams of Cutchaniaquin j 
 at Concord ; at Sagus (Lynn) ; at Oua- 
 boag (Brookfield) ; and, on journeys, even 
 at Yarmouth and Amoskeag (Manches- 
 ter, N. H.). Such earnest representa- 
 tions were made in England, that, in 
 1649, a corporation styled “The Society 
 for the Promoting and Propagating of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ in New Eng- 
 land ” was established, and a general 
 collection was ordered throughout all 
 the parishes of England and Wales for 
 a contribution to its funds, — the money 
 
HOLY WEEK AT ROME. 
 
 281 
 
 to be used in the maintenance of schools, 
 for the printing of God’s word, and for 
 the preaching of the gospel. 
 
 In 1651, the Nonantum Indians re- 
 moved their town to Natick, “a place of 
 hills.” A town of praying Indians was 
 wanted, “ somewhat remote from the 
 English ; ” and this place was settled 
 on by Eliot, after long consideration. 
 
 Among other civilizing effects of the 
 gospel which began to manifest them- 
 selves, was the voluntary adoption by 
 the converted Indians, at Concord, in 
 the year 1646, of a code of twenty-nine 
 laws. It will serve to illustrate at once 
 
 the disgusting filth of their heathenism, 
 and the fact that “ cleanliness Is next to 
 godliness,” if the fourteenth be quoted 
 here in full, though pardon be necessary 
 for the liberty taken : “ That there shall 
 not be allowance [;'. e. it shall not be al- 
 lowed] to pick lice as formerly, and eate 
 them; and whosoever shall offend in 
 this case shall pay for every louse a pen- 
 ny.” The sixteenth binds them not to 
 grease themselves, under penalty of five 
 shillings. The sixth fines lying five 
 shillings for the first offense, ten for the 
 second, and twenty for the third. 
 
 (Concluded in next No.) 
 
 HOLY WEEK AT ROME. 
 
 BY MARY LOWE. 
 
 (Continued from page 226.) 
 
 linger in Rome, or the boy choir who sing Men- 
 delssohn’s hymns in the old cathedral at 
 Berlin, will confess to an enjoyment of 
 the music unlike anything experienced 
 at home under the spell of the operatic 
 performances of our best choirs. 
 
 But, of all the music used in the 
 church during the year, the grandest 
 and finest is selected for Easter Week, 
 and heard during the ceremonies at St. 
 
 music of this 
 ^ in the Sistine 
 6fiapel on Good Friday, is that most 
 cel^rated. To this chapel gentlemen 
 are aomitted in full dress or uniforms ; 
 ladies black dresses and veils ; and, 
 as usual iK nil these ceremonies, a crowd 
 congregate^bout the door many hours 
 before the tii^ for the service to com- 
 mence. \ 
 
 We entered abbgat two in the after- 
 noon. The Miserere is sung at six ; and 
 we found already the space appropriated 
 to ladies well filled. Several were read- 
 ing novels, some taking the lunch brought 
 in their pockets, and passing little bot- 
 tles of wine from lip to lip, while a 
 steady rattle of Spanish, French, Ital- 
 ian, and English spread through the 
 
 I WISH there were time to 
 these great hallsN^ the V'atican, — all 
 open and illuminatecNis they are to-day, 
 
 — with the marvelous frbscoes of Angelo 
 and Raphael looking doVm from the 
 walls, the statues of rai^t marble 
 gleaming through the goldeirvglimmer 
 of lights, and the softest, saddesKmusic 
 swelling through the dim arches. \For 
 again to-day, in the Sistine Chapel, i\a 
 Miserere sung, and here again is II Papa\ Peter’s; and of all the 
 wrapped in his mantle of white brocade, \veek, the Miserere, sun 
 
 — looking wearied enough, — sitting on 
 his pontifical throne. But we have much 
 to see, and the Holy Week wears on. 
 
 To-morrow, which is Good Friday, is 
 the day to come here, for then is sung 
 Allegri’s Miserere, the strains of which 
 can be heard nowhere else, and here 
 only once in a year. 
 
 V'ery much of the music used in the 
 Romish Church is grand and sweet. 
 
 The boy choristers of the churches in 
 Paris sing with taste and feeling une.x- 
 celled. Any one who has listened to 
 vespers at Notre Dame, or the morning 
 mass at St. Roch or the Madelaine, or 
 the chanting of the nuns in the chapel 
 of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, in 
 
282 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 crowd. The light was good, and the 
 opportunity was a fine one for studying 
 the faded but magnificent frescoes of 
 Michael Angelo, — the celebrated Last 
 Judgment, that, like the Cenecola of 
 Leonardo da Vinci, is at first but a wall 
 of faded coloring, but grows and grows 
 with gazing, until its impression upon the 
 mind can never be effaced. I forgot the 
 jargon of tongues, the wine, and the 
 bread and novels on which my neigh- 
 bors feasted, and watched until the light 
 faded and shut out the constantly grow- 
 ing scene. 
 
 Now and then the door opened to admit 
 a fresh detachment of people, whose en- 
 trde was of the most ludicrous charactej;. 
 Hurried and pushed by those behind,\ 
 the moment the barriers were removed 
 they plunged headlong, recovering equi- 
 librium by great effort, and changing the 
 look of triumph to one of mortification 
 and distress under the laughing eyes 
 witnessing their discomfiture. Now and 
 then a man or boy presented himself 
 without the dress-coat, or with one man- 
 ufactured by careful pinning up of skirts. 
 These were sometimes allowed to pass, 
 but received special attention from the 
 guards within, who marched them off in 
 the most polite manner ; and just as they 
 were beginning to feel that a special seat 
 was in reserve for people who did not 
 appear in full dress, a door opened and 
 they were politely shown out. 
 
 As the twilight descends, the candles 
 are lighted before the altar and on the 
 triangle where are the fifteen tapers, 
 which are extinguished one by one, as 
 the service goes on, representing, says 
 one author, the successive abandonment 
 of the Saviour by his followers, and sig- 
 nificant also of the light on earth during 
 the Saviour’s presence, and the gradual 
 darkness that came with his death. The 
 last light, which is not extinguished, but 
 carried out of sight, signifies his descent 
 into the tomb, and its reappearance after 
 the music ceases shows forth his resur- 
 
 rection. After the entrance of the pope 
 and cardinals there follows the chant- 
 ing of the nocturnes and lamentations. 
 These nocturnes are penitential psalms, 
 and some of them, with the lamentations, 
 are arranged to very fine music, but 
 most are monotonous and unimpressive. 
 But when the last little flicker of light 
 has departed, when, dim and vague, the 
 Christ in the great picture looks more 
 terrible than before, and the pleading 
 apostles Avith uplifted hands, and the 
 martyrs/ showing their crosses and in- 
 struments of torture, and the meeting 
 friend^, the mother clasping her child, 
 and jiie angels leading the dead up from 
 the^ open graves into His presence who 
 sta'nds all majestic and glorious before 
 \ them ; and the boat that bears away into 
 'ithe darkness the lost seems moving, and 
 the saved are clinging to the cross ; and 
 high up the blessed are dwelling in light, — 
 all, all so vivid, so intensified by the imag- 
 ination that filled up the dark outlines, till 
 it is \no longer a picture, but a part of 
 the living scene, — then before the altar 
 the pope kneeled, and involuntarily ev- 
 ery heaid bowed itself ; and every heart, 
 Protestaat or Catholic, 1 think, felt it 
 could joib in the singing of the fifty-first 
 Psalm. Ko words can ever describe it. 
 It is one of those things that must be 
 felt to be known. For more than two 
 centuries, otice a year that music, like a 
 great wail and sob of penitence, has 
 swept throu^i the halls of the Vatican 
 and over a inultitude of hearts that 
 changed prayer to praises long ago. 
 Never was prayer so voiced before ; 
 never did all the, anguish and utter self- 
 contempt and self-renunciation of a pen- 
 itent heart throb ^and wail itself out in 
 tones like these ; .never did aspiration 
 go up so like a breath of incense as on 
 some of these strains ; never were tears 
 set to music, and dropped, one by one, 
 crystallized and pearly upon the air, till 
 Allegri wrote this Miserere. The music 
 prayed heart-prayers, wept heart-tears ; 
 
SUNDAY THOUGHTS. 
 
 331 
 
 if his long-continued benefactions and 
 devotion to our little earth would gradu- 
 ally become irksome. And yet he never 
 flags. I know that his bright face looks 
 full as cheerily through my window-panes 
 to-day as it looked upon this same world 
 in that time, more than eighteen hun- 
 dred years away, that Sunday always 
 brings so near. 
 
 ^ wonder if it can be the same world 
 to him, who sees it Kingless now, and I 
 go off into an infinitude of suggestions. 
 For Christ is an inexhaustible resource 
 for thought, and whichever way my 
 thoughts travel to-day,, they come back 
 at length to Christ. 
 
 Is it strange, or isn’t it, that the 
 brightest of all the days in that wondrous y 
 long ago was a Sabbath day ? Thay 
 resurrection-day was the climacteric 
 the few grandest days in the wor^l’s 
 centuries. 
 
 It is pleasant for the weak ones /- the 
 worthless wrecks — to think of X\At first 
 Sabbath as the day of resumption, — 
 the commencement of a new, eternal 
 youth. • ! 
 
 I remember also, with /a thrill of 
 sweetness, that our sex, oj that day, im- 
 mortalized its fidelity ; mat it was not 
 the holy Johns, nor the Ifirave Peters, but 
 the Marys, the wealf, tender, loving 
 women, who were firp at the tomb of 
 Christ, to find him r/sen. 
 
 After a completi(^, one naturally looks 
 back at progressip stages. My thoughts 
 take a retrospect^rom that finale, — the 
 resurrection. 
 
 I see first th^halo-crowned baby head 
 nestled in a manger, near the dumb- 
 eyed cattle, wliich, it seems, could not 
 have been entirely ignorant of their 
 proximity to i*oyalty. 
 
 Then, after thirty years, I see the 
 King emerged from babyhood and boy- 
 hood into manhood. I see him teach- 
 ing, healing, comforting, remodeling, 
 blessing, everywhere. 
 
 I see the sacred hands and feet, — 
 
 those hands that grappled with tempta- 
 tion, and hurled it from them in their 
 might, that showered princely gifts upon 
 the poor and needy, and now beckon 
 them to the many ihansions, and hold 
 forth a crown so brilliant that bedimmed 
 eyes see its glimi/er faintly, — those feet 
 that walked in ,/egenerate Jerusalem and 
 on tumultuovfe Gennesaret, that trod 
 alone the y^ine-press, and were torn 
 by nails, jhat walk now the streets of 
 “ Jerusapm the golden.” 
 
 I sephim in Gethsemane and Golgo- 
 tha, Aorn-crowned now, alas ! thorn- 
 
 f 
 
 cro/tned for me. I see him bruised, 
 breeding, dying. I see him victorious 
 ^ver death. I see him at the close of 
 ^that Sabbath day, at eventide, in the 
 dear, calm Sunday twilight, coming sud- 
 denly to his disciples with a benediction. 
 “ Peace ! ” he said, when the strife was 
 ended, after the life of bitter conflict and 
 anguish through which redemption had 
 been accomplished. 
 
 My eyes grow tired with the effort of 
 tr}-ing to see all this more vividly than 
 imagination will show it to me, and I 
 wish most earnestly that I had been a 
 child of the old world, that I might 
 have worshiped in the bodily presence 
 of the great King, and kissed his feet as 
 that other woman kissed them. 
 
 And yet, I hope some day to meet him 
 in the transcendently more beautiful new 
 world, then to see him glory-crowned ; 
 to hear the music of his voice as he bids 
 me receive absolution through his own 
 precious blood ; to reach up, through the 
 gathering shadows of eventide, hands 
 feeble from many battlings, and hear that 
 sweet “ Peace ! ” as he draws me up to 
 glory. 
 
 And thus hoping, I can return to the 
 kind sun with patience, and ask him still 
 to warm and cheer me day by day, until, 
 the eventide being come, I shall need 
 his beams no longer, — until I arise and 
 behold the splendor of the Sun of 
 Righteousness. c. 
 
332 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE INDIANS OF 
 THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY M. DEXTER, D. D. 
 
 [second article.] 
 
 The deeply spiritual and thorough 
 character of the preaching and instruc- 
 tion of Eliot and his fellows among 
 these Massachusetts savages, which has 
 been made obvious by all the account 
 which I have given of that teaching, will 
 be still further illustrated by a glance at 
 the precautions which were taken when 
 the time arrived for the formation of the 
 first Indian church. 
 
 Eliot began by taking down, in the 
 summer of 1652, from the lips of the 
 worthiest converts, their “confession,” 
 or “ experience ; ” and, having satisfied 
 himself that “ there was among them fit 
 matter for a church,” he read these con- 
 fessions to the Elders of the Bay. They 
 appointed a day of fasting and prayer, Oct. 
 13th, 1652, at Natick, — where was now a 
 large settlement of praying Indians, — 
 at which these confessions were publicly 
 read and approved. Then they were 
 printed and sent to England. There they 
 were generally approved, and word to 
 that effect sent back. Then, July 13th, 
 1654, another examination was held at 
 Natick, where the candidates were sub- 
 jected to a very thorough consideration 
 of their faith and of their life. Although 
 well satisfied, in general, of the honesty 
 of the converts, and of the expediency 
 of their being confederated into a church 
 state, yet, on account of some lingering 
 distrust, a deep feeling of the importance 
 of the act, and, probably still more, of 
 the lack as yet of any native preacher 
 who could act as pastor, the church was 
 not actually formed until 1660. 
 
 As a sample of these confessions, 
 that of Ephraim, — a “ poor publican,” 
 as Eliot calls him, — which is one of the 
 shortest of the number, but a fair speci- 
 men of their quality, is here given ; — 
 
 All the dales I have lived, I have been in 
 a poor foolish condition. I can not tell all 
 my sins, all my great sins ; I do not see 
 them. When I first heard of praying to 
 God, I could not sleep quietly, I was so 
 troubled ; ever I thought I would forsake 
 the place because of praying to God ; my 
 life hath been like as if I had been a mad 
 man. Last year 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 W ord 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 will 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 can not of myself ob- 
 tain pardon of my sins. I can not tell all 
 the sins that I have done if I should tell you 
 an whol day together. I do every morning 
 desire that my sins ’may be pardoned by 
 Jesus Christ ; this my heart saith, but yet I 
 fear I can not forsake my sins, because I can 
 not see all my sins ; I hear, That if we re- 
 pent and beleeve in Christ, all our sins shall 
 be pardoned, therefore I desire to leave off 
 my sins. 
 
 Another method by which these In- 
 dian converts manifested their new faith 
 was by “ prophesying.” Mr. Eliot was 
 in the habit of encouraging the most in- 
 telligent of them to “ speak in meeting ” 
 after he had done preaching, and, on 
 some occasions, he wrote down immedi- 
 ately afterward what he could remember 
 of these little Indian sermons. The 
 following is a fair specimen of their 
 spirit, delivered by one of them on the 
 afternoon of a fast-day, held, on account 
 of much rain and sickness, on Nov. 15th, 
 1658. 
 
 The Text he spoke from was Matt viii. 2. 3. 
 
 2. And loe there came a leper and worshiped 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 333 
 
 him, saying. Master, if thou wilt thou canst 
 make me clean. 
 
 3. And fesus putting forth his hand touched 
 him saying, I will, be thou clean, and imme- 
 diately his leprosie was cleansed. 
 
 A very little am I able to say, and besides 
 it is late [for it was very neer night]. 
 
 This is a day of fasting and prayer for 
 many causes, and one is for the many sick- 
 nesses and deaths among us, and this Te.vt 
 doth shew us the best Physitian in the 
 world, and the best way of curing all dis- 
 eases. Christ is the great Physitian ; he 
 healed many when he was on earth, and he 
 healed this Leper. This sick man came to 
 Christ and worshiped him and confessed 
 his power to heal him if he would, which 
 confession of his was so pleasing to Christ 
 as that he presently touched him and healed 
 him. So let us this day cry to Christ, and 
 worship him, and if we do it in faith then he 
 will hear us. 
 
 Again, God doth chastise us with raine, 
 and spoyleth our corn and hay ; but let us 
 take heed that in our hearts we be not angry 
 at God, for God is righteous, and we are 
 sinners ; let us be angry at our sins, and re- 
 pent this day, and goe to Christ as this man 
 did, and then he will bless us. 
 
 Last, dying speeches are not always 
 considered the best evidence of the gen- 
 uineness of piety. But it is never unin- 
 teresting to know what is said by the 
 soul which feels itself close confronted 
 with eternity. And there are some rea- 
 sons why the passing experiences of 
 the earliest Indian converts are specially 
 worthy of consideration. Hardened to 
 the idea of death, as, in one sense, they 
 were by their Indian training, their na- 
 ture was, after all, so superstitious as to 
 expose them to the onset of sudden tre- 
 mors when they were about to launch out 
 upon a sea to them so absolutely un- 
 known, and with the help of a chart and 
 compass in which, at the last, they might 
 have been easily tempted to lose their 
 new confidence, unless their hearts had 
 really been changed, and their feet 
 truly planted, for the last struggle, upon 
 the enduring Rock of Ages. 
 
 Mr. Eliot felt that the evidence of the 
 last hours of his converts was worth re- 
 cord and circulation among those whose 
 minds he especially desired to convince 
 of the genuineness of the work of God 
 among them. Accordingly, in 1665, he 
 had a very small edition of a little tract 
 printed at Cambridge, entitled The Dy- 
 ing Speeches of Several Indians ; “ not 
 so much,” as he says, “ for publishment, 
 as to save charge of writeing out of cop- 
 yes for those that did desire them.” 
 Only a single copy of this precious pam- 
 phlet is now known to exist ; and I ven- 
 ture to propose its insertion here in full, 
 as a means of its preservation, as well as 
 for the intrinsic interest which it pos- 
 sesses. 
 
 WABAN. 
 
 Waban was the first that received the gospel, 
 our first meeting was at his house ; the next 
 time we mett, he had gathered a great Com- 
 pany of his friends to hear the Word, in the 
 which he hath been stedfast: When we framed 
 ourselves in order in way of Government, he 
 was chosen a Rider of fifty ; he hath approved 
 himselfe to be a good Christian in Church 
 Order, and in Civil Order he hath approved 
 himselfe to be a zealous, faithfull, and stedfast 
 Ruler to his death. 
 
 His speech as followeth : I now rejoice 
 though I be now a dying, great is my afflic- 
 tion in this world, but I hope that God doth 
 so afflict me, only to try my praying to God 
 in this world whether it be true and strong 
 or not, but I hope God doth gently call me 
 to Repentance, and to prepare to come unto 
 him ; therefore He layeth on me great pain 
 and affliction, though my body be almost 
 broken by sickness, yet I desire to remember 
 thy name Oh my God, untill I dy. I re- 
 member those words Job, xix. 23-28. Oh 
 that my words were now written, oh that 
 they were printed in a book, that they were 
 graven with an iron pen and lead in a rock 
 for ever. For I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter 
 day upon the earth. And though after my 
 skin, wormes destroy this body, yet in my 
 flesh I shall see God, &c. 
 
 I desire not to be troubled about matters 
 
334 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 of this world, a little I am troubled ; I de- 
 sire you all my brethren and you also my 
 children, do not greatly weep and mourn for 
 me in this world. I am now allmost dying, 
 but see that you do strongly pray to God, 
 and doe you also prepare and make ready to 
 dy, for every one of you must come to d3'ing : 
 Therefore confess your sinns every one of 
 you, and beleive in Jesus Christ. I believe 
 that which is written in the Book of God. 
 Consider truly, and repent and believe : 
 Then God will pardon all your great and 
 many sins. 
 
 God can pardon all your sins as eas)’ly*as 
 one, for God’s free mercy and glory doe fill 
 all the world. God will in no wise forget 
 those that in this world doe syncerely repent 
 and believe : Veryly this is love Oh my 
 God. 
 
 Therfore I desire that God will doe this 
 for me, though in my body I am full of pain : 
 As for those that dyed afore we prayed to 
 God, I have no hope about them, now I 
 beleive that God hath called us for Heaven ; 
 and there in Heaven are many beleivers’ souls 
 abiding. Therefore I pray you doe not over- 
 much greive for me, when I dy in this world, 
 but make ready your selves ready to dy, and 
 follow me, and there we shall see each other 
 in Eternal glory ; in this world we live but a 
 little while ; therefore we must be allwayes 
 preparing, that we may be ready to dy. 
 
 Therefore Oh my God, I humbly pray, re- 
 ceive my soul by thy free mercy in Jesus 
 Christ my Saviour and Redeemer, for Christ 
 hath dyed for me and for all my sins in this 
 world committed. 
 
 My great God hath given me long life, and 
 therefore I now am willing to dy. 
 
 Oh Jesus Christ help my soul and save 
 me soul. I believe that my sickness doth 
 not arise out of the dust, nor cometh at per- 
 adventure, but God sendeth it. yob v. 6, 7. 
 
 By this sicknesse, God calleth me to repent 
 of all my sins, and to belive in Christ, now 
 I confesse my selfe a great sinner. Oh par- 
 don me and helpe me for Christ his sake. 
 
 Lord thou callest me with a double calling, 
 sometimes by Prosperity and mercy, some- 
 times by affliction. And now thou callest 
 me by sicknesse, but let me not forget thee 
 Oh my God. For those that forget thy 
 
 Name, thou wilt forsake them. As Psalm be. 
 17, all that forget God shall be cast to 
 Hell ; therefore let not me forget thee Oh my 
 God. 
 
 I give my soul to thee. Oh my Redeemer, 
 Jesus Christ Pardon all my sins & de- 
 liver me from Hell. Oh doe thou help me 
 against death, and then I am willing to dy, 
 and when I dy Oh helpe me and receive me. 
 
 in so saying he dyed. 
 
 PIAMEOHOU. 
 
 He was the second man next Waban that 
 received the Gospel ; he brought with him to the 
 second meeting at ?iks 3 xC% house many, when 
 we formed tlum into Government, he was 
 chosen Ruler of ten, when the Church at Has- 
 senamassit was gathered, lu was called to be a 
 Ruler then in that Church, when that was 
 scattered by the warr, they came back to Natick 
 Church, so many as survived, and at Natick 
 he dyed. 
 
 His speech as followeth, — 
 
 I rejoyce and am content and willing to 
 take up my sorrows and sicknesse : many 
 are the years of my life : long have I lived, 
 therefore now I look to dy. But I desire to 
 prepare myself to dy well. I beleive God’s 
 promise, that he will for ever save all that 
 belive in Jesus Christ. Oh Lord Jesus 
 helpe me, deliver me and save my soul from 
 Hell, by thine own bloud, which thou hast 
 shed for me, when thou didest dy for me and 
 for all my sins : now helpe me sjmcerely to 
 confesse all my sins, oh pardon all my sins. 
 I now beg in the name of Jesus Christ, a 
 pardon for all my sins : for thou Oh Christ, 
 art my Redeemer and deliverer. Now I 
 hear God’s word and I doe rejoyce in what I 
 hear, though I doe not see, yet I hear and 
 rejoyce that God hath confirmed for us a 
 minister in this Church of A^atek, he is our 
 watchman. And all you people deal well 
 with him, both men, women, and children : 
 hear him every Sabbath day, and make strong 
 your praying to God ; and all you of Hassan- 
 cmesut restore your Church and prajing to 
 God there. 
 
 Oh Lord helpe me to make ready to dy, 
 and then recieve my soul. I hope I shall dy 
 well by the help of Jesus Christ : Oh Jesus 
 Christ deliever and save my soul in everlast- 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 335 
 
 ing life in heaven, for I doe hope thou art 
 my Saviour. Oh Jesus Christ. 
 
 . so he dyed. 
 
 OLD J.A.COB.* 
 
 He was among the first that Prayed to God, 
 he had so good a memory, that he could re- 
 herse the whole Catechize, both Questions and 
 Answers ; when he gave thanks at meat, he 
 would sometimes only pray the Lord’s Prayer. 
 
 His speech as followeth : — 
 
 My Brethren : Now hear me a few words, 
 stand fast all you people in your praying to 
 God, according to that word of God, i Cor. 
 xvi. 13. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, 
 quit you like men and be strong in the Lord. 
 Especially you that are Rulers and Teachers. 
 Fear not the face of man, when you judg in 
 a Court together, help one another, agree 
 together : Be not divided one against an- 
 other, remember the parable of ten brethren 
 that held together, they could not be broken 
 nor overcome : but when they divided one 
 against another, then they were easyly over- 
 come : and all you that are Rulers, judg right 
 judgment, for you doe not judg for man, 
 but for God in your Courts. 2. Chron. xi.x. 
 6. 7. Therfore judg in the fear of God. 
 
 Again, You that are judges, see that ye 
 have not only humane wisdom, for man’s 
 wisdom is in many things contrary to the 
 wisdom of God, counting it to be foolishnesse. 
 Doe not judg that right which only seemeth 
 to be right ; and consider Matt. 7. i, 2. Judg 
 right, and God will be with you, when you 
 so doe. 
 
 Again I say to you all the people, make 
 strong your praying tp God, and be constant 
 in it , I Thes. v. 17. Pray continually. 
 
 Again, lastly, I say to you, Daniel, our 
 minister, be strong in your work. As Matt. 
 V. 14, 16. You must bring Light into the 
 world, and make it to shine, that all may see 
 your good work, and glorify your heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 Every preacher that maketh strong his 
 work doth bring precious perles : As Matt. 
 xiii. 52. And thou shalt have everlasting 
 life in so doing. 
 
 I am neer to death. I have lived long 
 enough. I am about 90 years old, I now 
 
 • He most have been near fifty yean of age when 
 the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. 
 
 desire to dy, in the presence of Christ. Oh 
 Lord I commit my soul to thee. 
 
 ANTONY. 
 
 He was among the first that Prayed to God, 
 he was studious to read the Scriptures asid his 
 Catechize, so that he learned to be a Teacher ; 
 but after the warrs, he became a Icrver of strong 
 drink, was often admonished, and finally cast 
 out from being a Teacher. 
 
 His dying speeches follow, — 
 
 I am a sinner. I doe now confesse it. I 
 have long prayed to God, but it hath been 
 like a Hipocrite ; tho I was a confessing 
 church-member, yet like an Hipocrite ; tho 
 I was a Teacher, yet like a backsliding Hip- 
 ocrite, I was often drunk. Love of strong 
 drink is a lust I could not overcome ; tho 
 the Church did often admonish me, and I 
 confessed, and thay forgave me, yet I fell 
 againe to the same sin, tho Major Gookins 
 and Mr. Eliot often admonished me : I con- 
 fessed, thay were willing to forgive me, yet I 
 fell againe. 
 
 Now Death calls for me, and I desire to 
 prepare to dy well. I say to you, Daniel, 
 beware that you love not strong drink as I 
 did, and was thereby undone. Strengthen 
 your Teaching in and by the word of God ; 
 take heed that you defile not your work, as 
 I did, for I defiled my Teaching by Drunk- 
 ennesse. 
 
 Again I say to you, my Children, forsake 
 not praying to God, goe not to strange pla- 
 ces, where they pray not to God, but strongly 
 pray to God as long as you live : both you 
 and your Children. 
 
 Now I desire to dy well, tho I have been 
 a sinner, I remember that word that saith, 
 that tho your sins be many and great, yet 
 God will pardon the penitent, by Jesus 
 Christ our Redeemer. Oh Lord save me 
 and'diliver me by Jesus Christ, in whom I 
 beleive : Send thy Angels when I dy, to 
 bring my poor soul to thee, and save my 
 poor sinfull soul in thy heavenly kingdom. 
 
 NEHEMIAH. 
 
 This very hopefull young man was going 
 out to hunt with a companion, who fell out 
 with him, and stabbed him mortally, and 
 killed him. A little was gathered up spoken 
 by him, — as followeth : — 
 
336 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 l am ready to dy now, but knew not of it 
 even now when I went out of my dore ; I 
 was only going to hunt ; but a wicked man 
 hath killed me. I see that word is true, 
 He that is well to-day may be dead to-mor- 
 row, he that laughed yesterday may sor- 
 row to-day. 
 
 My misery overtook me in the woods. 
 No man knoweth the day and time, when his 
 misery cometh. 
 
 Now I desire patiently to take up my 
 crosse and misery. I am but a man, and 
 must feel the crosse. Oh Christ Jesus helpe 
 me, thou art my Redeemer, my Saviour, and 
 my deliverer : I confesse my selfe a sinner ; 
 Lord Jesus pardon all my sins, by thy own 
 blood, when thou dyedst for us. O Christ 
 Jesus save me from Hell : Save my soul in 
 heaven. Oh help me, help me. So he dyed, 
 the wicked murderer is fled. 
 
 JOHN OWUSSUMUG SEN. 
 
 He was a young man when they began to 
 pray to God ; he did not at the presefit joyn 
 with them, he woidd say to me I will first see 
 into it, and when I understand it, I will an- 
 swer you, he did after a while enter into the 
 Civil Covenant, but was not entered into the 
 Church Covenant before he dyed ; he was pro- 
 pounded to joyn to the Church, but was de- 
 layed, he being of a quick passional temper, 
 some vitty littigations prolonged it till his sick- 
 ness, but had he recovered, the Church was 
 satisfied to have received him, he finished 
 well. 
 
 His speech as followeth, — 
 
 Now I must shortly dy : I desired that I 
 might live, I sought for medicine to cure 
 me, I went to every English doctor at 
 Dadham, Medfeild, Concord, but none could 
 cure me in this world. 
 
 But Oh Jesus Christ, doe thou heal my 
 soul, now I am in great paine, I have, no 
 hope of living in this world a whole year. I 
 have been afflicted : I could not goe to the 
 Publick Sabbath worship to hear God’s 
 word ; I did greatly love to goe to the Sab- 
 bath worship. 
 
 Therefore I now say to all you men, wo- 
 men, and children, love much, and greatly 
 to keep the Sabbath. I have been now long 
 hindred from it, and therefore now I find 
 the worth of it ; I say unto you all, my sons 
 
 & children, do not go into the woods 
 among non praying people ; abide constantly 
 at Natik: You my children, and all my 
 kindred, strongly pray to God : Love and 
 obey the Rulers, and submit unto their judge- 
 ment, hear diligently your menisters : be 
 obedient to Major Gookins, and to Mr. Eliot, 
 and Daniel. 
 
 I am now allmost dead, and I exhort you 
 strongly to love each other, be at peace, and 
 be ready to forgive each other. 
 
 I desire now rightly to prepare mj-self to 
 dy, for God hath given me warning a whole 
 year, by my sicknesse. I confess I am a 
 sinner : my heart was proud, and therby all 
 sins were in my heart, I knew that by birth 
 I was a Sachim, I got oxen and cart and. 
 plough like an English man, and by all these 
 things my heart was proud. 
 
 Now God calleth me to repentance, by 
 my sicknesse this whole year. Oh Christ 
 Jesus help me, that according as I make my 
 confession, so through thy grace I may ob- 
 tain a pardon for all my sins : for thou Lord 
 Jesus didest dy for us, to deliver us from sin. 
 I heare and believe, that thou hast dyed for 
 many : Therefore I desire to cast away all 
 worldly hindrances, my Lands and Goods, 
 I cast them by, they can not help me now, 
 I desire truely to prepare to dy : My sons I 
 hope Christ will help me to dy well : now I 
 call you my sons, but in heaven we shall all 
 be Brethren ; this I learned in the Sabbath 
 worship, all miserys in this world upon Be- 
 livers, shall have only joy and blessing in 
 Jesus Christ : Therefore Oh Christ Jesus 
 help me in all my miserys, and deliver me 
 for I trust in thee, and save my soul in thy 
 heavenly kingdom, now behold me and,looke 
 upon me who am dying, 
 so he dyed. 
 
 JOHN SPEEN. 
 
 He was among the first that prayed to God ; 
 he was a diligent Reader, he became a Teacher, 
 and carried well for diverse yeares, untill the 
 sin of strong drink did infect us, and the?i he 
 was so farr infected with it, that he was de- 
 servedly layd aside from Teaching. His last 
 speeches were as followeth. 
 
 Now I dy. I desire you all my friends, 
 forgive him that hurt me, for the word of 
 God in Matt. vi. 3, 4: Forgive them that 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 33/ 
 
 have done you wrong, and your heavenly 
 Father will forgive you, but if you doe not 
 forgive them your heavenly Father will not 
 forgive you. Therefore I intreat you all, my 
 frinds, forgive him that did me wrong (for 
 John Nanusquanit beat him and hurt him 
 much a little before his sicknes), now I de- 
 sire to dy well, now I confess all my sins, I 
 am a sinner, especially I loved strong drink 
 too well, and some times I was mad drunke, 
 though I was a Teacher. I did offend against 
 praying to God, and Spoyled my Teaching; 
 all these my sins and drunkness. Oh I pray 
 you all forgive me. Oh Jesus Christ help 
 me now and deliver my soule, and help me 
 that I may not go to hell, for thou O Christ 
 . art my deliverer and Saviour, Oh God help 
 me. Lord, though I am a sinner. Oh Lord 
 do not forget me. 
 
 and so he dyed. 
 
 BLACK JAMES. 
 
 He was in former times reputed by the Eng- 
 lish to be a Pawaw, but I can not tel this. / 
 know he renounced and repented of all his 
 former Wayes, and desired to come to Christ, 
 and pray to God, and died well, as appeares in 
 what followeth. 
 
 Now I say, I almost dy, but you all my 
 sons, and all you that pray at Chalanu- 
 kongkornuk* take heed, that you leave not off 
 to pray to God, for praying to God is ex- 
 ceeding good ; for praying to God is the 
 way that will bring you to the heavenly 
 kingdom ; I believe in Christ, and we must 
 follow his steps. 
 
 Especially you my sons, beware of drunk- 
 ness, I desire you may Stand fast in my 
 room, and Rule well, I almost now dead, 
 and I desire to dy well, oh Lord Jesus 
 Christ help me, and deliver my Soul to dy 
 well. 
 
 so he dyed. 
 
 Very different was all this from the 
 processes* of the Catholic missions, 
 which were contemporaneously going on 
 under the labors of the Jesuits, among the 
 Hurons, and elsewhere. P'ather Gamier 
 announced the conversion of about a thou- 
 sand Indians in a single year, from June, 
 1639, to June, 1640; but it is significant 
 
 • Dudley. 
 
 that, of these, two hundred and sixty were 
 infants, and many more were children ; 
 and so many more were baptized in 
 articulo mortis, or thereabouts, that of 
 the whole thousand not twenty received 
 the ordinance in health. To get baptism 
 administered, peaceably if they could, 
 forcibly if they must, was the main prac- 
 tical item in the creed of these papal 
 missionaries. Father Le Mercier {Rela- 
 tions des Httrons, A. D. 1637, p. 165) gives 
 the following account, which fairly illus- 
 trates their way of working, and its differ- 
 ence from that of John Eliot. He says : — 
 
 On the third of May, Father Pierre Pijart 
 baptized at Anonatea a little child two months 
 old, in manifest danger of death, without 
 being seen by the parents, who would not 
 give their consent. This is the device which 
 he used. Our sugar does wonders for us. 
 He pretended to make the child drink a lit- 
 tle sugared water, and at the same time dipped 
 a finger in it. As the father of the infant 
 began to suspect something, and called out 
 to him not to baptize it, he gave the spoon 
 to a woman who was near, and said to her, 
 “ Give it him yourself.” She approached, 
 and found the child asleep ; and at the same 
 time. Father Pijart, under pretense of seeing 
 if it was really asleep, touched his face with 
 hii wet finger, and baptized him. At the 
 end of forty-eight hours he went to heaven. 
 
 To be sure, when the Jesuits under- 
 took to teach their theology to adult 
 savages they uttered some truth. They 
 taught the one Jehovah, and the ten 
 commandments. But when all was 
 practically reduced to one pivotal point, 
 that point seems to have been baptism ; 
 — as I suggested before, by hook or by 
 crook. Once, at a Huron village called 
 IVenrio, the Indians, after vainly trying 
 feasts, dances, and powows against the 
 pestilence which was ravaging them, 
 sent for Father Brdbeuf, and inquired. 
 What must we do that your God may 
 take pity on us ? Brdbeuf replied {Rela- 
 tions des Hurons, A. D. 1637, p. 1 14) : — 
 
 “ Believe in Him. Keep his command- 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 
338 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 ments. Abjure your faith in dreams. 
 Take but one wife, and be true to her. 
 Give up your superstitious feasts. Quit 
 your assemblies of debauchery. Eat no 
 human flesh. Give no feasts to devils. 
 And make a vow, that, if God will de- 
 liver you from this pestilence, }-ou will 
 build a chapel to oflfer him thanksgiving 
 and praise.” 
 
 Mr. Parkman, than whom no man has 
 more thoroughly mastered the early his- 
 tory of the Canadas, thus graphically 
 characterizes the missionary- labors of 
 these early emissaries of Rome : — “ We 
 see the irrepressible Jesuits roaming from 
 to\\-n to town, in restless quest of subjects 
 for baptism. In the case of adults they 
 thought some little preparation essen- 
 tial ; but their efforts to this end. even 
 with the aid of St. Joseph, whom they 
 constantly invoked, were not always suc- 
 cessful ; and, cheaply as they offered 
 salvation, they sometimes failed to find 
 a purchaser. With infants, however, 
 a simple drop of water sufficed for the 
 transfer from a prospective hell to an 
 assured paradise. . . . Some of the 
 
 principal methods of conversion are cu- 
 riously illustrated in a letter written by 
 Gamier to a friend in France. ‘Send 
 me,’ he says, ‘ a picture of Christ, n<ith- 
 out a beard' Several A'irgins are also 
 requested, together with a variety of 
 souls in perdition, — ames damnccs, — 
 most of them to be mounted in a porta- 
 ble form. Particular directions are given 
 with regard to the demons, dragons, 
 flames, and other essentials of these 
 works of art. Of souls in bliss, — 
 ames bienheureuses, — he thinks one 
 will be enough. All the pictures must 
 be in full face, not in profile, and the 
 colors should be bright.” 
 
 Here was thorough knowledge of In- 
 dian human nature, and acute procedure 
 for its Christianization on the superficial 
 Jesuit plan. But how miserably, con- 
 temptibly, unlike was this half driving, 
 half-cheating process, which numbered 
 
 converts with scarcely so much as an at- 
 tempt to wash them from their inward 
 filthiness, to the patient, radically evan- 
 gelical work of our fathers upon them ! 
 The Canada Indians might well have 
 adopted, as their own appeal, the motto 
 of the first seal of the Massachusetts 
 colonial governors. — so fairly expressive 
 of the zeal in genuine missions which 
 marked the fundamental idea of the 
 colony, and which that seal rudely pic- 
 tured as proceeding from the mouth of 
 an Algonquin, standing, with bow and 
 arrow in hand, on the shore among his 
 pines, — “ Come over and help us ! ” 
 
 Having glanced thus at the thorough 
 gospel processes by which EUot and his 
 co-laborers undertook to bring the In- 
 dians on the soil of the Massachusetts 
 Colony to the knowledge of the SaHour, 
 I have only space remaining in this paper 
 to hint, in the briefest manner, at the ex- 
 tent to which that work was carried. 
 
 Major Gookin, who was one of the 
 three who accompanied Eliot on his first 
 preaching mission to Nonantum Hill, 
 and who, from his official position and 
 long personal familiarity with the sub- 
 ject, was the best possible authority, 
 set down, from the most careful inquiry, 
 in 1674, the year before Philip’s War 
 
EARLY MISSIONARY LABORS 
 
 broke out, the number of settlements of 
 praying Indians then existent in the Col- 
 ny, with the number of residents in each. 
 His list is as follows : — 
 
 A^atick, 145 
 
 Punkapaog {S\.ow^\\.or\), . . 60 
 
 Hassanamesitt (Grafton), . . 60 
 
 Okommakamesit (Marlborough), 50 
 IVawesi^ {Tewksbury), ... 75 
 
 A’ashobah {lAtiletou), . . . . 50 
 
 Magunkaq nog {Tioy)km\or\), . 55 
 
 Manchage (Oxford), .... 60 
 
 Chabankongko 7 nnk (Dudley), . 45 
 
 Maanexit (n.e. pt. Woodstock), too 
 Quantisset (s.E.pt. Woodstock), too 
 Wabq 7 iisset{s.w. pt. Woodstock), 1 50 
 Packachoog 0 ^ oreesier), . .too 
 IVaenn/ug {Uxbridge), ... 50 
 
 [14 towns, 2 churches, 1100 souls, 
 yielding obedience to the gospel.] 
 
 It thus appears that, in less than a sin- 
 gle generation after the first preaching of 
 the gospel to the Algonquins of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Colony, there were fourteen 
 towns, — Gookin mentions two others, 
 Weshakini and Qnabaug, which were 
 not fully settled, and so left out of his 
 count, — comprising over eleven hun- 
 dred christianized savages, besides all 
 who had died in hope during the twenty- 
 eight years between Eliot’s first sermon 
 and Gookin’s census. 
 
 Besides this, great pains and much 
 
 AMONG THE MASS. INDIANS. 339 
 
 money were expended in teaching the 
 Indian children. Numbers of the more 
 forward and promising of them were put 
 to learn Latin and Greek, and two, Joel 
 Hiacoo 7 )ies and Caleb Cheesaiunuck, stud- 
 ied in the College. The former was 
 drowned or murdered, in Nantucket, 
 just before he was to have graduated. 
 The latter took his B. A. at the commence- 
 ment in 1665, but not long after died of 
 consumption. So that the high hopes 
 which Eliot and others entertained of 
 doing great things in the education of 
 these children of the forest were 
 blasted. 
 
 Many of the Indian children, how- 
 ever, became useful. Gookin speaks of 
 one who was a mariner, one a carpen- 
 ter ; another went to England with a 
 Mr. Drake, and died there. Consump- 
 tion carried oif a great many Indians 
 who lived with the English, though, as 
 Gookin quaintly suggests, “ sundry died 
 of it that lived not with the English.” 
 The fact seems to have been that civ- 
 ilization somehow did not perfectly 
 agree with the early New-England In- 
 dians, as it has not with their breth- 
 ren of later years. 
 
 Some more definite statements as to 
 what became of the Indians of New 
 England, and some further reference to 
 Eliot’s compeers, for which there is no 
 space here, I shall have room for in the 
 next and concluding paper. 
 
 SPECIMEN OF ELIOT’s HAND-WRITING. 
 
 fYour worship’s to command in Christ.] 
 
340 
 
 THE SABBATH AT HOME. 
 
 HOURS WITH AFRICAN EXPLORERS. — No. II. 
 
 BY REV. S. J. DOUGLASS. 
 
 “ The nations of the East and of the 
 West,” says one, “ are turned from each 
 other ; the former, with face toward the 
 rising of the sun, the morning ; the lat- 
 ter, with face toward the setting sun, the 
 evening ; the former sacredly guarding 
 the unchanged seat of the primitive 
 past, the latter ever seeking through all 
 the changing forms of existence for a 
 glorious future.” “ But between both,” 
 adds Ritter, the illustrious geographer, 
 quoting this passage, “ on the south, in 
 the bright mid-day, lies Africa, the Sou- 
 dan of the earth, the land over which the 
 sun follows a uniform course ; the land 
 where the changeable and startling phe- 
 nomena of Asia and Europe are not 
 seen ; where the climate, from spring to 
 winter, does not know inconstancy and 
 perpetual change ; where do not exist 
 this strongly contrasted sinking and ris- 
 ing, as we look at past and future ; and 
 where, through a want of contrast be- 
 tween nature and man, there is no effort 
 to add to the wealth of nature, or to 
 quicken and stimulate man with the 
 thought of eternity and another world.” 
 And continuing the conception, he 
 employs this beautiful figure : “If the 
 morning and evening greeting become 
 to every man, even to the most wearied 
 pilgrim on the road of life, a heart-felt 
 necessity, yet one wliicli is not known 
 when the glaring mid-day comes, — the 
 hour poorest in liope of all,- — tlien, from 
 a like analogy, all the people of the Sou- 
 dan of the earth, in the peaceful posses- 
 sion of the bright mid-day, seem only 
 bound to the jmesent, which no legend 
 of gray antiquity beautifies, which no 
 care for the future disturbs, and which 
 no hope for that future ever bears on the 
 pinions of -imagination away.” 
 
 We shall certainly be led often to feel 
 the truth of the idea here expressed, as 
 
 we see Africa, with all her sons, basking 
 in the bright glare of the present, liv- 
 ing for to-day, regardless of the mor- 
 row, fearing and hoping for the passing 
 hour, forgetful of all beyond that. 
 
 This is surely the character of Africa 
 as we now find it. It must have been its 
 character in all the ages covered by the 
 mantle of the past. From north to south 
 and from east to west, there is, without 
 doubt, a certain fixed type of civilization, 
 or rather mode of life, which has long 
 remained unchanged, not having degen- 
 erated, nor yet perceptibly advanced. 
 Many of the most observant travelers. 
 Dr. Livingstone among the rest have 
 noticed this. Some have hence inferred 
 the perpetual degradation of that land, 
 and the preceding words of Ritter would 
 almost point to that conclusion. On the 
 other hand, we think there are signs 
 looking to an opposite result, and be- 
 tokening the coming of a moral day as 
 bright and reviving for that people as 
 the natural light in which they now sit. 
 
 That continent is the light and heat- 
 center of the earth. May it not in the 
 future be covered with a holier and more 
 cheering light, and sit under the beams 
 of a pure religion and a true civilization ? 
 F rom the very fact of its past hnmobility, 
 the great geographer already quoted in- 
 fers that “ Africa seems to be spared as 
 a field of development for future ages.” 
 And we may ask. May not her own sons 
 be the agents in that great work ? 
 
 But these things will appear plainer as 
 we advance. 
 
 I.NHABITANTS OF XEGRO-LAXD. 
 
 Soudan proper is often styled “Ne- 
 gro-land,” not vaguely, but with a spe- 
 cial propriety. In all that part of Africa 
 which we shall now traverse, there are, 
 according to good authorities, two great