Purber^ Daniel L, 
 
 Missionary Labors of 
 the Apostle Sliot 
 
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 MISSIONARY LABORS OF 
 THE APOSTLE ELIOT. 
 
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 H Discourse 
 
 Delivered October 25, 1896, Two Hundred and Fifty Years 
 from the Time those Labors were Begun. 
 
 By REV. DANIEL L. FURBER, DD. 
 
 Pastor Emeritus of the First Church in Newton, Mass., 
 at Newton Centre. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 £be pilgrim press 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/missionarylaborsOOfurb 
 
THE APOSTLE ELIOT. 
 
 Ephesians 4:11. “And he gave some, apostles; and some, 
 prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” 
 
 Every one of these titles may be applied to 
 the man of whom I am to speak. He was called 
 the “apostle” Eliot; he was a prophet because 
 he spoke the words of God ; he was an evangelist 
 in the sense of being a traveling missionary; and 
 he was pastor and teacher to the church in Rox- 
 bury. A custom existed among the Indians of 
 never passing by the grave of one of their chief 
 men without leaving upon it some token of their 
 regard. They believed that if they failed to do 
 this they should never prosper again. If the 
 region around Boston were now inhabited by their 
 descendants, how thickly would John Eliot’s grave 
 in Roxbury be bestrown with pledges of the un¬ 
 dying affection which they felt for him ! This 
 tribute of their gratitude they cannot now pay to 
 him, but we who live amid the scenes of his first 
 missionary labors may do what is equivalent to it 
 by rehearsing his deeds. There is an especial 
 reason why this church should do it, for he was 
 here at its formation in 1664, and assisted in the 
 ordination of his son as its first minister. 
 
4 
 
 Having graduated from Cambridge University, 
 where most of the Puritan ministers were edu¬ 
 cated, Mr. Eliot became an usher in a school kept 
 by Thomas Hooker, not far from London. Mr. 
 Hooker, having been silenced for nonconformity* 
 and being no longer permitted to enter a pulpit, 
 betook himself to teaching. His influence upon 
 Eliot led to the conversion of the latter, and to 
 his devoting himself to the Christian ministry, 
 but as he was a Nonconformist he could not 
 preach in England, and therefore came to 
 America. On his arrival here in 1631, Mr. Wil¬ 
 son, the first minister of Boston, was absent on 
 a visit to England, and Mr. Eliot was engaged by 
 his church to preach for them until their pastor 
 returned. He was so much liked that he was 
 urged to remain with them as an assistant to Mr. 
 Wilson. Governor Winthrop, who was the leading 
 man in the church, says, “ We labored all we could 
 to keep him with us.” But he had promised some 
 friends in England that if they would follow him 
 to the new country he would be their minister. 
 They came the next year and made their home in 
 Roxbury, where he served them about fifty-eight 
 years. 
 
 When he had been in Roxbury about fourteen 
 years he began his work for the native Indian 
 tribes. He said that his object was threefold: 
 first, the glory of God’s grace in the salvation of 
 
5 
 
 some of them ; secondly, his own love and com¬ 
 passion for their poor desolate souls; and thirdly, 
 the fulfilling of a tacit engagement in the charter 
 by which the colony was established. 
 
 In looking around upon these tribes he beheld, 
 first, the Massachusetts Indians, not headed by 
 any great sachem or king, but scattered in small 
 companies through a district extending from the 
 coast westward as far as to the sources of the 
 Blackstone River, and southward to the river 
 Neponset. Their chief localities are embraced 
 within the present towns of Dorchester, Newton, 
 Concord, and Grafton. Then there were the Paw¬ 
 tucket Indians living along the Merrimac River 
 at Pawtucket Falls, the site of the present city of 
 Lowell. Westward were the Nipmucks, occupy¬ 
 ing a large part of what is now Worcester County. 
 Southward were the Wampanoags under the 
 powerful Massasoit, all along the bay, at Cape 
 Cod, and on the islands. 
 
 With all these tribes Eliot came more or less in 
 contact. He had most to do with those who lived 
 westerly and northerly from Boston and Roxbury ; 
 Massasoit and his tribe at the south being pro¬ 
 vided for by the Mayhews on Martha’s Vineyard, 
 and the neighboring islands by Mr. Cotton of 
 Plymouth, and by Roger Williams of Rhode 
 Island. 
 
 On the twenty-eighth of October, 1646, Mr. 
 
6 
 
 Eliot, in company with three other persons, who 
 probably were Thomas Shepard and Daniel 
 Gookin, of Cambridge, and Mr. Wilson, of Boston, 
 made his first visit to Nonantum. Edward Jack- 
 son, of Newton, was constantly present at the 
 meetings, taking notes of what was said and done. 
 He was the man in whose house meetings were 
 held by the people of this place, before a meeting¬ 
 house was built or a church formed. His house 
 stood near the line between Newton and Brighton. 
 Mr. Eliot had previously told the Indians that the 
 superiority of the English over them was owing 
 to their knowledge of the true God and of the 
 arts, and to their industry and regular habits. 
 This led the Indians greatly to desire instruction, 
 and when he told them he would come and teach 
 them they were in great joy. On the appointed 
 day they watched eagerly for his approach, and 
 when he came in sight hastened to meet and wel¬ 
 come him. They assembled in the wigwam of 
 Waban, their chief man, and listened an hour and 
 a quarter to a sermon from the text, “ Prophesy, 
 son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the 
 Lord God ; Come from the four winds, O breath, 
 and breathe upon these slain, that they may 
 live ” (Ezek. 3 7 : 9). The preacher explained the 
 commandments, showed the “ curse and dreadful 
 wrath of God ” against those who break them, 
 and then preached Jesus Christ as “the only 
 
7 
 
 means of recovery from sin and wrath and eternal 
 death.” It so happened that the Indian word for 
 wind was Waban, and the men understood the 
 text to mean, Prophesy and say to Waban. 
 
 When the discourse was ended they were asked 
 whether they understood what they had heard. 
 Many voices answered, Yes. They were then 
 allowed to ask questions, and the first question 
 they asked was, “How may we come to know 
 Jesus Christ ?” The preacher then said to them, 
 “ You must think of what we have told you. 
 You must think much and often upon it, both 
 when you lie down on your mats in your wigwams, 
 and when you rise up and walk alone in the fields 
 and woods ; and you must pray to God to reveal 
 to you Jesus Christ, and though you cannot make 
 long prayers as the English do, yet if you do but 
 sigh and groan, and say, ‘ Lord, make me to know 
 Jesus Christ, for I know him not ’ ; and if you do 
 say so again and again in your hearts, He is such 
 a God as will be found of them that seek -him 
 with all their hearts; and you must confess your 
 sins, and mourn for them, and acknowledge how 
 just it would be for God to deny you the knowl¬ 
 edge of Jesus Christ or anything else, because of 
 your sins.” 
 
 The next question was whether God could 
 understand prayers in the Indian language. The 
 preacher told them that the same God who made 
 
8 
 
 the English made the Indians also, and therefore 
 he must know the minds and the speech of both. 
 “For,” said he, “there is a basket. It is made of 
 white straws and black straws and many other 
 things which I do not know; but the man that 
 made it knows ; he knows all that is in it.”' 1 
 
 The preacher greatly interested the men by his 
 gift of illustration. In speaking of the existence 
 of God he said : “ If you see a great wigwam or 
 a great house, would you say it made itself ? 
 Would you say the foxes or the raccoons had built 
 it ? You never saw the builder of it, but would 
 you doubt that it was made by a wise workman ? 
 So when you see the sun and the moon and the 
 stars, and the world and all that is in it, you 
 should say there must be a God who made all 
 these things.” 
 
 In explaining how God could be in many places 
 at the same time the preacher pointed to the sun. 
 “ The sun,” said he, “ is only one of the creatures 
 which God has made, but the light of it is in this 
 wigwam and the next, in Nonantum and in Bos¬ 
 ton, in Massachusetts and in Old England, all at 
 
 1 Dr. A. C. Thompson quotes from “ Westerly and its Witnesses ” the story of 
 an Indian woman in Rhode Island who became deeply interested for her salva¬ 
 tion. Her Christian friends exhorted her to pray. She supposed she must pray 
 in English and she knew but one English word — the word “ broom.” Her 
 anxiety became intense, and at last throwing herself into the attitude of a sup¬ 
 pliant she cried out, “ Broom! broom! broom! ” God answered her heart in¬ 
 stead of her lips and filled her with light and love and joy. 
 
9 
 
 the same time. In the same way God can be in 
 all places at the same time.” 
 
 In showing the difference between outward acts 
 of worship and a right heart he said, “ Outward 
 acts are the shell, and a right heart is the kernel. 
 The shell is important, but the kernel is much 
 more important.” 
 
 Other questions asked by the Indians were, 
 “Why did not God give all men good hearts that 
 they might be good ? ” “ Why did not God kill 
 
 the devil that made all men so bad ? ” “ If a man 
 
 should be enclosed in iron a foot thick and be cast 
 into the fire, what would become of his soul ? 
 Could the soul come forth thence or not?” “If 
 a man talk of another’s faults and tell others of 
 them when he is not present to answer, is not that 
 a sin ? ” “ Do not Englishmen spoil their souls 
 
 when they say that a thing cost them more than 
 it did cost ; and is not that all one as to steal ? ” 
 A drunken Indian asked, “Who made sack?” 
 But the other Indians silenced him and told him 
 that was a papoose question. 
 
 Two weeks later another meeting was held at 
 which Mr. Eliot asked the men whether some¬ 
 thing did not trouble them after the commission 
 of sin, such as murder, adultery, theft, and lying ; 
 and what they thought would comfort them 
 against this trouble when they should die and 
 appear before God. They answered that they 
 
IO 
 
 were troubled, and that they could not tell what 
 would comfort them. The preacher then told 
 them that God had sent Jesus Christ to die for 
 their sins, and to satisfy the justice of God by 
 his sufferings in their stead and room, if they did 
 repent and believe the gospel, and that he would 
 love the poor miserable Indians if now they sought 
 God and believed in Jesus Christ. 
 
 An aged Indian asked if it was not too late for 
 such an old man as he to repent and seek after 
 God. Two or three others were so much affected 
 by what had been said to them that they could 
 not conceal their weeping, though they tried much 
 to do it. “We observed,” says Eliot, “that one 
 of them, having his eyes red with weeping, turned 
 his face to a corner of the wigwam to avoid being 
 seen ; at which we went to him and spoke encour¬ 
 aging words. But hearing these he fell to weep¬ 
 ing more and more, which forced us also to weep 
 with him.” This meeting lasted the whole after¬ 
 noon, and such was the effect of the truth that 
 Waban and his men could not sleep. He prayed 
 with them and instructed them at intervals through 
 the night. 
 
 The attention of the missionary was next 
 turned to the Pawtucket Indians on the Merrimac 
 River, and then to tribes westward from Boston. 
 Four times in the summer of 1648 he made jour¬ 
 neys to the vicinity of what is now the town of 
 
Lancaster, forty miles from Roxbury, where he 
 found men eager for the gospel. From this point 
 he went still farther west, as far as to the present 
 town of Brookfield. The distance was sixty miles. 
 There were no roads, no bridges, and no comfort¬ 
 able houses for lodging and refreshment. Swollen 
 rivers must be forded, and drenching rains en¬ 
 dured, which made the ground soft and oozy, and 
 the progress of the journey tediously slow. There 
 were also hostilities among the Indian tribes, which 
 made traveling dangerous. But Shawanon, the 
 sachem of the Nashaways, accompanied Eliot 
 with a guard of twenty men, by whose help he 
 accomplished his journey at the cost of incredible 
 hardship. “ It pleased God,” says he, “to exercise 
 us with such tedious raine and bad weather, that 
 we were extreme wet, insomuch that I was not 
 dry, night nor day, from the third day of the week 
 unto the sixth ; but so traveled, and at night pull 
 off my boots, wring my stockins, and on with 
 them again, and so continued; the rivers also 
 were raised so that we were wet in riding through; 
 but that which added to my affliction was my horse 
 tyred, so that I was forced to let my horse go 
 empty, and ride on one of the men’s horses. I 
 considered that word of God, ‘ Endure hardness 
 as a good soldier of Christ.’ ” 
 
 Once a year this indefatigable man went to the 
 region of the present town of Chelmsford “ to 
 
12 
 
 spread the gospel net,” as he said, for the Penna- 
 cooks, who every spring came down the river as 
 far as that to fish. He made long tours through 
 the Nipmuck country, where were established 
 seven praying towns. 
 
 As a result of all these labors the Indians were 
 induced to change their habits and live more as 
 the English did. They pledged themselves to 
 decency, cleanliness, good order, and industry. 
 They renounced polygamy, ceased their howlings, 
 left off greasing their bodies and decorating their 
 hair, wore suitable clothes, and knocked at the 
 door before entering a neighbor’s house. Previ¬ 
 ously the Indian had looked upon labor as degrad¬ 
 ing, and he put that drudgery upon his wife, while 
 he went hunting and fishing. Now he was willing 
 to work, and his wife turned her attention to 
 housekeeping. He learned the law of kindness to 
 his wife, and when any violation of that law oc¬ 
 curred it was reported at the lecture which was 
 given once in two weeks, and the offender was re¬ 
 buked. At one of the lectures an Indian by the 
 name of Wampas was accused of beating his wife 
 in a fit of passion. He immediately arose, before 
 a large meeting, which was attended by the gov¬ 
 ernor and others of the English, and humbly con¬ 
 fessed his fault, taking the blame wholly to himself. 
 Being reminded of the heinous nature of his sin, 
 he turned his face to the wall and wept. Many of 
 
the Indians gave evidence of a radical change in 
 them by their prayerful lives, their attention to all 
 religious duties, their honesty and truthfulness, 
 their kindness to one another, their tenderness of 
 conscience, and the meekness with which they 
 suffered injuries or received admonition for their 
 faults. They prayed morning and evening in 
 their families, and before and after meat, kept the 
 Sabbath, and held religious meetings among them¬ 
 selves. Wannalancet, sachem of the Pennacooks, 
 said, “ I have been used all my life to pass up and 
 down in an old canoe, but now I give up myself to 
 your advice, enter into a new canoe, and do engage 
 to pray to God hereafter.” 
 
 In 1651 the Nonantum Indians were removed 
 to South Natick. One reason for the removal 
 was that many of the English disliked them and 
 wanted them to be farther away. Mr. Eliot did 
 not object to establishing a settlement for them at 
 South Natick, for he thought it might correct 
 their roving habits. Some of the Concord Indians 
 joined them there. 
 
 The settlement was on both sides of the river, 
 across which a footbridge was built eighty feet 
 long. They built a meeting-house fifty feet long, 
 twenty-five wide, and twelve feet high, with a 
 room overhead in which was a prophet’s chamber, 
 with a bed in it for Mr. Eliot to sleep in when he 
 passed a night there. The building was also used 
 as a schoolhouse. 
 
T 4 
 
 When they were fairly established at Natick, 
 their good friend and teacher desired to form the 
 praying Indians into a church, and for this pur¬ 
 pose he called the neighboring ministers together 
 to listen to their narratives of religious experi¬ 
 ence. The ministers who came were Mr. Wilson, 
 of Boston ; Mr. Shepard, of Cambridge; Mr. 
 Allen, of Dedham ; and Mr. Dunster, first presi¬ 
 dent of Harvard College. 
 
 These men were satisfied with the evidences of 
 Christian character which were presented to them, 
 and were in favor of admitting the converts to the 
 privilege of a public covenant with God and of 
 baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But so strong 
 was the prejudice of the English against the 
 Indians, and so full were they of suspicions of 
 them, that it was thought best to wait until a 
 better feeling should prevail; and the result was 
 that a church was not formed until 1660, a church 
 of between forty and fifty members ; and this was 
 nine years after evidence of fitness for church 
 membership had been given that was satisfactory 
 to some of the best ministers in the colony. The 
 narratives of religious experience were written 
 down and preserved, and can be seen and read by 
 any who desire to read them. 
 
 Mr. Eliot trained the most gifted Indians to 
 conduct religious meetings in which they explained 
 the Scriptures and gave exhortations to their 
 
i5 
 
 brethren. At one such meeting Governor Endi- 
 cott and Mr. Wilson were present, and about 
 twenty other English persons. An Indian prayed 
 about a quarter of an hour, and then explained the 
 parables of the treasure hid in the field and the 
 merchantman seeking goodly pearls. He said 
 the hidden treasure was the knowledge of Jesus 
 Christ, including repentance, pardon, and the 
 means of grace. The things to be parted with in 
 order to gain it were their old customs and vices. 
 The merchantman seeking goodly pearls was the 
 poor, praying Indian seeking after God and truth. 
 The pearl of great price was faith in the Saviour. 
 In order to buy it our sins must be cast away. 
 We exchange our sins for the pearl. On these 
 points he dilated with fervor, and applied them 
 with hearty feeling to the condition of his Indian 
 brethren. After this a hymn was sung by the 
 men and the women to an English tune. The 
 governor and Mr. Wilson listened to the exercise 
 with great delight. The governor said he could 
 scarcely refrain from tears of joy. 
 
 An address was made on a Fast Day in a time 
 of prevailing sickness by Wauban. His text was, 
 “ They that be whole need not a physician, but 
 they that are sick.” He said: “ I am a poor, 
 weak man, and know but little, and therefore I 
 shall say but little. These words are a similitude, 
 that as some be sick and some well, and we see in 
 
experience that when we be sick we need a physi¬ 
 cian and go to him, and make use of his physic, 
 but they that be well do not so, they need it not 
 and care not for it, so it is with soul sickness. 
 And we are all sick of that sickness in our souls, 
 but we know it not. We have many at this time 
 sick in body, for which cause we do fast and pray 
 this day and cry to God ; but more are sick in 
 their souls. We have a great many diseases and 
 sicknesses in our souls, as idleness, passion, 
 neglect of the Sabbath, and so forth ; therefore 
 what should we do this day but go to Christ, for 
 Christ is the Physician of souls ? He healed men’s 
 bodies, but he can heal souls also. He is a great 
 Physician, therefore let all sinners go to him.” 
 
 Mr. Eliot gives an account of the death of 
 Wampas, who on his dying bed said, “ God giveth 
 us three things in this world: first, health and 
 strength ; secondly, food and clothes ; and thirdly, 
 sickness and death.” His last words were, “ O 
 Lord, give me Jesus Christ! ” And he continued 
 holding up his hands in silent prayer as long as 
 he had strength. The Indians had been in the 
 habit of flying in terror from dying persons and 
 leaving them to die alone, but they gathered 
 around Wampas, weeping and listening to his 
 gracious words. “Nor am I able,” says Mr. Eliot, 
 “to write his story without weeping.” This is the 
 Indian who confessed with tears to having beaten 
 his wife. 
 
i7 
 
 The missionary work of Mr. Eliot reached its 
 highest degree of prosperity in 1674, at which 
 time the whole number of praying Indians under 
 his care was 1,100, with twenty-four native preach¬ 
 ers. Dr. A. C. Thompson doubts whether there 
 are twenty-four Indian preachers now in the whole 
 country. 
 
 I will speak next of some of the forms of oppo¬ 
 sition which were encountered. 
 
 The first was from the Indian priests or pow- 
 aws, whose supposed connection with the invisible 
 world gave them great influence. The Indians 
 had great fear of the evil spirit or Chepian, as 
 they called him, and the main object of their 
 religious rites was to avert his wrath. The pow- 
 aws were the accredited agents for doing this, and 
 death and life were supposed to be in their power. 
 If any one was ill, the powaw must come and 
 appease Chepian before health could return. He 
 came as priest, physician, and juggler all in one. 
 His howlings and dances and bodily contortions, 
 his charms and incantations, were as important as 
 his roots and herbs ; and with these frantic per¬ 
 formances he kept his victims in terror. Even 
 the praying Indians stood in awe of him, and Mr. 
 Eliot said he could observe a striking difference 
 in their countenances when a powaw was present 
 at any of their meetings. 
 
 Another form of opposition was from the sa- 
 
I 
 
 18 
 
 chems, who feared a loss of power. Sachem Cut- 
 shamakin, of Neponset, went to Natick and 
 demanded in great wrath that Mr. Eliot should 
 desist from building a town there. The Indians 
 were frightened and ran away, leaving Mr. Eliot 
 alone with the sachem. Setting his eyes upon 
 the savage he said, “ I am about the work of the 
 great God, and my God is with me, so that I 
 neither fear you nor all the sachems in the coun¬ 
 try. I shall go on with my work, and do you 
 touch me if you dare.” The spirit of the great 
 chief shrunk and fell, and the Indians showed 
 their pleasure by smiles which they were careful 
 to conceal from the sachem. 
 
 But the greatest calamity that ever befell the 
 missionary work for the Indians was the desolat¬ 
 ing war of King Philip in 1675-1676. This was 
 also a severe trial to Mr. Eliot, for it brought 
 every red man under the suspicion of siding with 
 Philip. Eliot had confidence in them, and so had 
 Mr. Gookin, of Cambridge, and the few who had 
 intimate knowledge of them ; but the efforts of 
 these men to defend the Christian Indians from 
 suspicion only resulted in drawing hostile feeling 
 upon themselves. Mr. Gookin sometimes feared 
 to walk the streets. The terror of that war in 
 which six hundred of the flower of New England 
 were slain, in which six hundred houses were 
 burnt, and twelve towns utterly destroyed, had 
 
l 9 
 
 created such a panic through the land that every 
 man with a copper-colored face was looked upon 
 as a faithless and bloody savage. Such a torrent 
 of unreasonable antipathy Eliot, with all his in¬ 
 fluence, could not understand. With an affecting 
 tenderness he told his beloved church at Natick 
 that their settlement must be broken up, for the 
 court had decided that they must all, about two 
 hundred in number, be removed to Deer Island. 
 “And now,” said he, “you will learn that through 
 much tribulation you are to enter into the king¬ 
 dom of heaven.” They listened sadly, but sub¬ 
 missively, to the decree of the court. Quietly, 
 but in the silence of a heavy heart, they took with 
 them their scanty stock of food and clothing, and 
 bade farewell to a place which had been their 
 home for twenty-five years. Boats were made 
 ready for them on the river two miles above Cam¬ 
 bridge. At the appointed time Mr. Eliot met 
 them there to console them and to assure them 
 of his unwavering confidence. “ All who were 
 present,” said he, “ were deeply moved to see the 
 quiet resignation of the poor souls, exhorting one 
 another and encouraging one another with prayers 
 and tears.” 
 
 The Stoughton Indians were also removed to 
 Deer Island, and the whole number collected there 
 was five hundred. Mr. Eliot went to the island 
 to visit them as often as he could. He found 
 
20 
 
 them patient and uncomplaining. So excellent 
 was the temper which they showed that they soon 
 began to regain their place in the public confi¬ 
 dence ; and then it was thought what an efficient 
 ally they might be in the war against Philip. The 
 subject was opened to them and they expressed 
 themselves ready and willing to fight for the 
 English against Philip, and be faithful to them as 
 they said they always had been. The court then 
 recalled from the island all who could be service¬ 
 able in the war, and their assistance, as a military 
 force, well acquainted with the skulking methods 
 of savage warfare, was invaluable. In the sum¬ 
 mer of 1676 they took and killed four hundred of 
 the enemy. 
 
 On the twelfth of August in that year, the 
 death of Philip by a musket ball put an end to 
 the war, and with it to the unreasonable feeling 
 which had existed toward the Christian Indians. 
 Soon after, the whole company, which had been 
 banished to Deer Island, were allowed to return. 
 Some came to Nonantum, and passed the winter 
 on the same spot where thirty years before their 
 apostolic friend had first met them with the 
 gospel. He, then seventy-two years old, reestab¬ 
 lished his Nonantum lecture and preached to 
 them once a fortnight all that winter. 
 
 When we think of the sad fate of these native 
 tribes, of the heavy burden of injuries under 
 
which they groaned, and of the cruel suspicions 
 which pierced their hearts, it is a comfort to re¬ 
 member that there was one champion of their 
 rights who never forsook them; one steadfast and 
 unfailing friend who loved them and trusted them. 
 
 And when our hearts are pained by the long 
 recital of grievances which have been suffered by 
 other tribes in our country at the hands of a faith¬ 
 less government, grievances which it is now too 
 late to redress, it is a relief to remember the time 
 when words of kindness and of compassion were 
 spoken to the savage, and the hand of affectionate 
 confidence was extended to him, and to know that 
 the original possessor of these hills and valleys, 
 these plains and forests, these lakelets and streams, 
 was not allowed to pass away with only the bitter 
 and unrelieved remembrance of suspicions and 
 defeats and wrongs. 
 
 I have not told the whole story of the mission¬ 
 ary labors of this apostolic man until I have 
 spoken of the almost incredible achievement of 
 the translation by him of the entire Bible into 
 the Indian tongue. Edward Everett, in one of 
 his orations, says, “The Christian Church does 
 not contain an example of resolute, untiring, suc¬ 
 cessful labor superior to that of translating the 
 entire Scriptures into the language of the native 
 tribes of Massachusetts; a dialect as imperfect, 
 
22 
 
 as unformed, as unmanageable, as any spoken on 
 earth.” 
 
 The instances in which the whole Bible has 
 been translated into a heathen tongue by the 
 single-handed labors of one man are very few. 
 There is Carey’s Bible in Bengalee; Judson’s in 
 Burmese; that of Hiram Bingham, Jr., in the 
 language of the Gilbert Islanders, and I know not 
 whether there are any others. But Eliot’s work 
 was done long before theirs, and he is the pioneer 
 translator, from whose patient and unwearied 
 labors have grown all the Bible societies in the 
 world, and editions of the sacred Book in almost 
 every language under heaven. Let it be con¬ 
 sidered also that the language of these Indian 
 tribes was never before reduced to writing. It 
 had no literature, no grammar, no lexicon. 
 
 When the translation was completed, the good 
 author said, “ Prayer and pains, through faith in 
 Jesus Christ, will do anything.” 
 
 The first edition, consisting of fifteen hundred 
 copies, was issued at Cambridge in 1663, was dedi¬ 
 cated to King Charles II, and was the first Bible 
 ever printed in America. It was printed at the 
 expense of the English Society for Propagating 
 the Gospel, at the cost of nine hundred pounds. 
 It supplied the demand for twenty years, after 
 which there was an urgent call for another edition. 
 The unwearied translator, at the age of seventy- 
 
23 
 
 nine, entered upon the preparation of it, greatly 
 assisted by Rev. John Cotton, of Plymouth. He 
 lived to superintend its publication in 1685, an 
 edition of two thousand copies. It was doubtless 
 one of the sweetest comforts of his old age to 
 think that the book, on which he had bestowed so 
 much pains, would continue to be read by succes¬ 
 sive generations of the race for whom it was pre¬ 
 pared, and that it would be cherished as a priceless 
 treasure by their posterity, perhaps for hundreds 
 of years. But alas! the call for another edition 
 was never made. It is probable that the very 
 language in which this Bible was written has 
 ceased to be spoken. The tribes who once read it 
 have perished; the last of the Mohegans have 
 passed away, and it has often been said that prob¬ 
 ably there is not an Indian in all America who 
 can read Eliot’s Bible. But Bishop Whipple has 
 recently stated that there are five hundred Ojib- 
 ways in Minnesota who can read it. Even if this 
 were not so, the Bible has value, for with the 
 Indian grammar which Eliot prepared, it is an im¬ 
 portant contribution to the science of comparative 
 philology, and as such it is the object of the 
 attention of scholars in our own time. 
 
 Mr. Eliot was the author of a number of books 
 in the Indian language, among which were a 
 Catechism, a Primer, and a Psalter; and he trans¬ 
 lated into that language Bayley’s “ Practice of 
 
24 
 
 Piety/’ Baxter’s “Call to the Unconverted,” 
 and Shepard’s “ Sincere Convert ” and “ Sound 
 Believer.” 
 
 Of the first edition of the Bible there are said 
 to be twenty-three copies in America and ten in 
 Europe. A copy of it, bound with a metrical 
 version of the Psalms, has been sold for twelve 
 hundred and fifty dollars. Of the second edition 
 there are fifty or sixty copies in this country. A 
 copy of the Bay Psalm Book has sold for twelve 
 hundred dollars. Eliot was one of the editors 
 of it. 
 
 Cotton Mather says of Mr. Eliot’s preaching, 
 “ He could have said with Paul, ‘ I determined to 
 know nothing but Jesus Christ,’ ” and that he 
 mentioned that blessed name in his discourses 
 with a frequency like that with which Paul men¬ 
 tions it in his epistles. He says also that he was 
 like Moses, because his face was continually shin¬ 
 ing as a result of his communion with God. In 
 one of his sermons Mr. Eliot says, “ We pray in 
 our meetings, we pray morning and evening in 
 our families, we pray in our closets three times in 
 a day if we are like David and Daniel, and we 
 have through the day many scores of ejaculations.” 
 When he was in a company of ministers he would 
 say, “ Come, let us not separate without a prayer. 
 God looks upon his ministers.” The name “ pray¬ 
 ing Indian ” originated with the Indians them- 
 
2 5 
 
 selves. By a praying Indian they meant a Chris¬ 
 tian Indian, and it is quite possible that their 
 teacher’s instructions to them on the subject of 
 prayer, and his own example as a praying man, 
 may have led them to speak in that way. 
 
 Mr. Eliot loved children. He said that the care 
 of the lambs was one third of Christ’s charge to 
 Peter. Whenever he went to Nonantum he filled 
 his capacious pockets with apples and cakes and 
 goodies for the papooses. He urged the establish¬ 
 ment of schools, and through his influence the 
 children in Roxbury were better educated, so 
 Richard Mather said, than in any other town. 
 He gave seventy-five acres of land for a school at 
 Jamaica Plain, and provided that Indian and negro 
 children should be admitted to it. He tells a re¬ 
 markable story of what he said was a manifesta¬ 
 tion of faith in an Indian child who died at the age 
 of three years. The child had some toys with 
 which he was much pleased when in health, but 
 when they were brought to him in his sickness, to 
 divert him from his pains, he pushed them aside, 
 saying, “ I will leave my basket behind me, for I 
 am going to God ; I will leave my spoon and my 
 tray behind me, for I am going to God.” 
 
 So full was the heart of this good man of benev¬ 
 olence that there was no room in it for the love of 
 money. It is said that out of his small income he 
 gave hundreds of pounds to the poor. The parish 
 
26 
 
 treasurer at one time in paying him his salary, 
 knowing his habit of giving his money away, tied 
 it up in a handkerchief with as many hard knots 
 as he could make, to prevent him from giving it 
 away before he reached home. On his way home 
 he called at a house where there were poverty and 
 sickness, and told the woman of the house that he 
 had brought her some relief. He then tried to 
 untie the knots, and after working at them a long 
 time without being able to loosen them, he gave 
 the woman the handkerchief and all that was in it, 
 saying, “ Here, my dear, take it; I believe the 
 Lord designs it all for you.” Sometimes, no 
 doubt, he gave away more money than he could 
 afford to give, and kept too iittle for himself and 
 his family. In doing this you will say he was 
 indiscreet. But is it not evident that Paul was 
 very much pleased with the Macedonian Christians 
 when they gave more than they could afford to ; 
 and when he saw that the depth of their poverty 
 abounded unto the riches of their liberality, was 
 he not very proud of them ? Such giving shows 
 true greatness of soul. 
 
 In his old age this saintly man said rather play¬ 
 fully that he feared his friends, Mr. Cotton, of 
 Boston, and Mr. Mather, of Dorchester, who had 
 then been in heaven a long time, would suspect 
 that he had gone the wrong way because he stayed 
 so long behind them. And then he said, “I 
 
27 
 
 wonder for what the Lord Jesus Christ lets me 
 live; he knows that now I can do nothing for 
 him.” Then it occurred to • him that he might 
 teach the negroes who were at service in families. 
 He sent for them and they came to his house once 
 a week for religious instruction. He greatly 
 blamed the English families for neglecting to 
 teach them. There was also a blind boy whom 
 he sent for that he might teach him. 
 
 How much of the spirit of his Master do we 
 see in this godly man ! How closely did he walk 
 in the steps of him who went about doing good! 
 Care for the poor, care for the Indian, care for the 
 negro, care for the blind, care for everybody that 
 needed help. Well might Shepard of Cambridge 
 say, “ I think we can never love nor honor this 
 man of God enough; ” and well might Baxter on 
 his dying bed say, “ There was no man on earth 
 whom I honored above him.” 
 
 Is not this Christian hero well worthy of the 
 name of an apostle ? He was so humble that he 
 did not like to be called an evangelist , and he 
 asked people not to bestow that honor upon him. 
 But he is the apostle Eliot; he has been called that 
 
 i 
 
 for nearly two hundred and forty years, and we 
 never shall call him anything else. 
 
 Having enjoyed in the mother country, at one 
 of her ancient universities, every facility for 
 
28 
 
 mental enlargement and liberal culture, here in a 
 desolate wilderness he enters smoky wigwams that 
 could not keep out the wind and rain, and opens 
 the mysteries of the gospel to men whom he 
 described as “ the dregs of mankind, the saddest 
 spectacles of misery upon earth.” To carry the 
 message of salvation to such persons in their 
 miserable hovels, he said was “like opening an 
 alabaster box of precious odors in the dark and 
 gloomy habitations of the unclean.” “ He had 
 popular talents which gave him distinction among 
 the first divines of Massachusetts, at a time when 
 the clergy were held in peculiar honor ; ” and yet, 
 such was the love and compassion which he felt 
 for these “poor desolate souls,” as he called them, 
 that the fame of his labors in their behalf is his 
 chief distinction, and he is more known to the 
 world as the apostle to the Indians than as the 
 Roxbury minister. Richard Baxter said to him in 
 a letter, “ There is no man on earth whose work I 
 think more honorable than yours. The industry 
 of the Jesuits and friars, and their successes in 
 Congo, Japan, and China, shame us all save you.” 
 
 And yet how evident it is that Eliot did not 
 have the sympathy and help in his work that he 
 ought to have had ! The great body of the Eng¬ 
 lish people felt little or no interest in it. They 
 disliked the Indians and wanted to have as little 
 to do with them as possible. Hence the removal 
 
2 9 
 
 of them to South Natick, and the long delay to 
 form them into a church. Hence also the base 
 and cruel suspicion of them in the time of King 
 Philip’s war, the breaking up of their homes in 
 Natick, and their banishment to Deer Island. But 
 we hear no word of complaint of all this from the 
 man whose work was hindered by it. Did it not 
 seem strange to him that those who gave him no 
 help could not at least refrain from putting 
 obstacles in his way ? But he speaks not a word 
 of censure. Patiently, meekly, gently, he accepts 
 the inevitable, works as long as he can, and then 
 waits for an opportunity to do more. 
 
 If he had known that the Indians were a short¬ 
 lived race, soon to vanish away, would he have 
 had the courage to toil seventeen years in trans¬ 
 lating the Bible for them ? He thought they 
 might: be descendants of the lost ten tribes of 
 Israel to whom precious promises had been made, 
 and though they were living in such deep debase¬ 
 ment, they were no more beyond hope than was 
 the valley full of dry bones which Ezekiel saw, 
 and he believed that the breath of the Lord could 
 blow upon them and make them live. This was 
 what he had in mind at the very first meeting he 
 had with them in Waban’s wigwam. Hence the 
 text that he preached from, “ Prophesy unto the 
 wind, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord 
 God ; Come from the four winds, O breath, and 
 
30 
 
 breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” The 
 breath of the Lord did breathe upon them and 
 they lived. Almighty power did come to them 
 and lifted them out of the horrible pit and the 
 miry clay. The dayspring from on high did visit 
 them as they sat in darkness and the shadow of 
 death, and gave them the light of life. And 
 though as a race they have perished from the 
 earth, the names of the praying Indians are not 
 blotted out from the Book of Life. The work 
 which their beloved friend and teacher did for 
 them was wrought upon the imperishable tablets 
 of hearts that will forever respond to his teaching, 
 and they are even now his joy and crown of 
 rejoicing in the presence of his Lord and theirs. 
 
 In bringing good tidings to these children of the 
 forest the preacher showed them very plainly the 
 dreadful consequences of rejecting his message 
 and of dying in their sins. Carne, in his life of 
 Eliot, in which are many inaccuracies, says that 
 the missionary painted the ineffable love of Christ, 
 and the blessed state of those who believe in him, 
 and then asks, “ Of what avail would it have been 
 to set before his audience the terrors of the 
 Almighty and the doom of the guilty ? ” But this 
 is just what the preacher did. In the original 
 account of the first meeting that was held we read 
 that he spoke “ about the joys of heaven and the 
 terrors and horrors of wicked men in hell.” Carne 
 
3i 
 
 acids that Eliot was a “wise man, and that he knew 
 that the heart loves better to be persuaded than 
 terrified, to be melted than alarmed.” But Eliot 
 was no wiser than the Holy Scriptures are, which 
 address the fears of men in the most terrific 
 manner. If he had spoken only of the ineffable 
 love of Christ and never mentioned the wrath of 
 God and of the Lamb, he would have misrepre¬ 
 sented the character of God, would have delivered 
 only a part of the message which he was sent to 
 deliver, and would have shown himself unfit to be 
 a messenger at all, except to those who say, 
 “ Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” 
 We are contemplating the career of a successful 
 missionary, and it is important to know the course 
 he pursued. We find that like his Master he went 
 to the people with a heart full of love to them, and 
 like his Master he spoke the whole truth without 
 concealment and without evasion. In the same 
 way may any missionary or minister hope for 
 success in his work. 
 
 We see in the results of these missionary labors 
 what class of persons it is that is most influenced 
 by the gospel; namely, the poor, the weak, the 
 neglected. Our Lord said, “To the poor the gos¬ 
 pel is preached.” Why did not Massasoit, the 
 great sagamore of the Wampanoags, receive the 
 gospel when it was offered to him ? Why did not 
 his son, King Philip, the terror of all New Eng- 
 
32 
 
 land, receive it ? Because he was strong, and had 
 that pride of power and sense of self-sufficiency 
 which so often lead to the rejection of the gospel. 
 But the Massachusetts Indians were weak. They 
 were only broken and scattered fragments of a 
 tribe that had almost been swept out of existence 
 by a wasting sickness. They looked up to the 
 English as a superior race, and were willing to be 
 instructed by them. King Philip looked down 
 even upon a Massachusetts governor because he 
 was a subject. “ I will treat,” said he, “ only with 
 my brother, King Charles of England.” So haughty 
 a spirit as this could not easily submit to the 
 humbling terms of the gospel, and he rejected 
 them with scorn. He was not the kind of man to 
 say, “ I am a sinner, and feel the need of a Sav¬ 
 iour.” Taking hold of a button on Mr. Eliot’s 
 coat, he said, “ I care no more for your gospel 
 than I do for that button.” But the Massachu¬ 
 setts Indians were of a lowly mind, and to them 
 the news of pity and help from an almighty Sav¬ 
 iour was welcome. It was good news. Oh, blessed 
 are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom 
 of heaven ! 
 
 The name of Eliot has exerted a stimulating in¬ 
 fluence upon the cause of foreign missions. He has 
 been called the morning star of modern missionary 
 enterprise. When the Pilgrims and the Puritans 
 came to these shores their object was to bring the 
 
33 
 
 gospel to the aborigines of this continent. We 
 commonly say and sing that they came for freedom 
 to worship God, and so they did, but that was not 
 all they came for, nor was it the principal thing. 
 The charter of the colony of Massachusetts Bay 
 states that the principal end of the plantation was 
 to win the natives to the Christian faith. Gov¬ 
 ernor Bradford speaks in a similar way of the 
 object of the Plymouth Colony. Eliot carried out 
 the purpose of the plantation, but he did more 
 than that. He struck a note that has been vibrat¬ 
 ing ever since. It was heard across the sea in 
 Old England, and soon societies for the propaga¬ 
 tion of the gospel in foreign parts began to be 
 formed both in England and Scotland under the 
 stimulus, no doubt, of the good news from 
 America. Eliot was in constant correspondence 
 with Hon. Robert Boyle, from whom the money 
 came for the prosecution of his work, and whom 
 he addressed as the “Nursing Father” of it. 
 The mother of Samuel J. Mills in Torrington, 
 Conn., used to talk to her boy from early child¬ 
 hood about John Eliot and David Brainerd, that 
 she might interest him in the missionary work 
 to which she had consecrated him. We now 
 speak of Mills as the father of the' foreign mis¬ 
 sionary work in America. He it was who said, 
 “ We can send the gospel to India if we will.” 
 When five young men were ordained as the first 
 
34 
 
 missionaries to India in the old Tabernacle Church 
 in Salem in 1812, Dr. Spring, of Newburyport, said 
 to them in his charge, “ Go, and lay your bodies 
 by the side of Ziegenbalg and Schwartz, that you 
 may meet them with Eliot and Brainerd, and all 
 other faithful missionaries in the realms of light.” 
 
 Though it be true that the men for whom Eliot 
 toiled and prayed have now no representatives on 
 the earth to rehearse his deeds, there is a sense in 
 which it may be said that all the missionary move¬ 
 ments of our time are indebted to him. Think 
 how much has been done for mankind in two hun¬ 
 dred and fifty years by missionary societies in 
 England and Scotland and other parts of the 
 Protestant world, not one of which was in exist¬ 
 ence when Eliot began. Think how much has 
 been done by our own American Board in its 
 eighty-six years of seed-sowing among the nations, 
 and of what his example did for that. And then 
 think how many stirring appeals on the platforms 
 of missionary gatherings have been made eloquent 
 by the use of his name, and how many mountains 
 of difficulty have been removed out of the way by 
 the thought of what he accomplished. 
 
 The longest life on earth is short, but it is long 
 enough to exhibit to the world a great example, 
 and that is something which will never die. Long¬ 
 fellow in referring to the well-known fact that if a 
 star in the remotest depths of space were blotted 
 
35 
 
 out of existence, we should not know it, for the 
 light which has been for ages on its way to us 
 would still continue to shine, beautifully adds : — 
 
 “ So when a great man dies, 
 
 For years beyond our ken, 
 
 The light he leaves behind him lies 
 Upon the paths of men.” 
 
 The man who lives a grandly beneficent life 
 blesses the world, not merely by what he does, but 
 by showing what can be done. He blesses it by 
 his deeds, and he blesses it by the inspiring 
 power of an example which sends into thou¬ 
 sands of ingenuous hearts the impulse of a desire 
 to be like him. Oh, that this might be the 
 effect upon each one of us, of our meditation 
 upon this great life, and as we think of him in the 
 shining cloud of witnesses who look down upon 
 us, may our selfishness and slothfulness be re¬ 
 buked, our hearts be filled with love, our hands 
 with diligence, and our lives with self-sacrifice; 
 and may the spirit of Him who came to this world 
 not to be ministered unto but to minister be 
 upon us! 
 
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