been felt and expressed in their welfare, by many persons of eminence in England. "Oh, that you had converted some, before you had killed any!" was the language of the good John Robinson, in a letter to the governor of the Plymouth colony; and in the charter of Charles I. to Massachusetts, the object of the settlement was stated to be, "To WYNN AND

INCITE THE NATIVES OF THE COUNTRY TO THE KNOWLEDG

AND OBEDIENCE OF THE ONLIE TRUE GOD AND SAVIOUR OF MANKIND." Soon after Eliot's settlement at Roxbury, the attention of some of the principal men of the colony seems to have been specially directed to the character and condition of the Indians. In 1646, the General Court of Massachusetts passed an order, to promote the diffusion of Christianity among the aboriginal inhabitants.

"It was probably this proceeding," says the biographer, "which fixed the immediate attention of Mr. Eliot on the project. He had, however, long felt a deep concern for the moral condition of the natives; a concern inspired by his sanctified love of doing good, and increased, probably, by his belief, that the Indians were the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. This theory, among numerous conjectures on the origin of the natives of America, has found advocates not deficient in learning or talents, however weak may be the foundation on which their reasoning rests."

In entering upon this enterprise of pious benevolence, how great must have been the difficulties, that met him at the very threshold of his labors! He was now in the middle of life; the strong impulses and fiery heat of youth had subsided; his days must have been engrossed in his duties as minister at Roxbury, upon the performance of which he depended for his support. Amidst all these unpropitious circumstances, he had not only to become familiar with the habits and conciliate the good-will of a haughty and jealous race, but also to learn a language which had never been reduced to rules, and of which he could obtain no instructer, a language, too, of wild and rude men, embodying no classic treasures, to lure him onward, and furnishing no elegant literature, to beguile his toil; in acquiring which, the labors of philologists and the learning of the east could afford him no assistance. It was a work to which he could have been urged by nothing but the promptings of duty and benevolence; it was long, and wearisome, and unrewarded, save by the inward peace which the good man always feels, at the completion of a pious labor.

But Eliot was not to be discouraged from his purpose by any prospect of toil, however arduous. The source of his perseverance and his strength was in the simple remark which he has piously recorded at the end of his Indian grammar: "Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do any thing." He found a young Indian, whom he describes as a "pregnant-witted young man," with some smattering of English, and a clear pronunciation of his own tongue; and by taking him into his family, and every day attending to his conversation, he was at length able to understand so much of the words and construction of the Indian language, as to translate the Lord's prayer and several passages of Scripture, besides several prayers and exhortations of his own composing. He also employed every opportunity to overcome the shyness and jealousy of the natives in his neighborhood, to become acquainted with their character, and commend himself to their regard.

It was on the 28th of October, 1646, that Eliot, in company with three others, after having given notice of their intention, made his first visit to the wigwams of the Indians. The blessing of Heaven was implored upon the enterprise, and the pious company set out to hold probably the first meeting for Christian worship ever witnessed among the wild haunts of the savages of New-England. The interview took place at the wigwam of Waban, an influential Indian, who had become known among the English, at a spot called Nonantum, a name "which had been given to the high grounds in the north-east parts of Newton, and to the bounds of that town and Watertown." The services of this meeting consisted of prayers and a sermon from Eliot, in which he explained some of the leading truths of religion, repeated the ten commandments, and impressed upon his hearers the high sanctions with which they had been delivered to man. At the close of these services, the natives proposed such questions as the occasion and his discourse had suggested to their minds. The associations connected with this scene are well embodied in the following paragraph of the biographer:

"The scene presents itself to our imagination, as one of deep interest. Here was a gifted scholar, educated amidst the classic shades of an English university, exiled from his native land for conscience's sake, a man of high distinction in the churches of NewEngland, standing among the humble and rude huts of the forest, surrounded by a peaceful group of savages, on whose countenances

might be traced the varieties of surprise, belief, vacancy, and perhaps half-suppressed scorn, seeking to find some points of intercourse between his own cultivated mind and their gross conceptions, that spiritual truth might enter into their hearts and leave its light and blessing there. The communication of Christian instruction in such a place and under such circumstances has an affecting significance. To use the beautiful illustration in the original narrative of this visit, it was breaking the alabaster box of precious ointment in the dark and gloomy habitations of the unclean."—p. 52.

This was succeeded, at intervals of various lengths, by three other meetings, of a similar character, and held at the same place. In this intercourse with the Indians, Mr. Eliot was successful in gaining their good-will, while at the same time he instructed them in the truths of the gospel, and impressed them with the superiority of civilized society. The following are specimens of the questions, proposed on different occasions, after our evangelist's instructions. Some of them are interesting, only as they show the gropings of the human intellect amidst its first lessons of moral truth; while others contain, shadowed forth in a rude form, the elements of some of the dark and difficult problems that have perplexed the inquirers of every age. After a lecture from Ephesians 2: 1, they ask, "What countryman was Christ, and where was he born? "How far off is that place from us here?

"Where is Christ now?

"How and where may we become acquainted with him, as he is now absent from us?"

At another of their interviews, they inquire,

"If a man should be enclosed in iron, a foot thick, and thrown into the fire, what would become of his soul? Could his soul come forth thence, or not?

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Why did not God give all men good hearts, that they might be good? And why did he not kill the Devil, that made all men so bad, God having all power?

"How shall we know when our faith is good, and when our prayers are good prayers?"

These four meetings are sufficient almost to make Nonantum holy ground, for they were the beginnings of that enterprise, to which Eliot devoted a large portion of his remaining days, and which shines in our history as the morning star of American missions.

The Indian character has been looked upon in two very different lights. To the Pilgrims, on their first arrival, it appeared destitute of every humane affection and every tender feeling, and fraught with all that was brutal and terrible in

savage passion. For many years, they were seldom seen by the whites, save amidst the awful terrors of battle, or the midnight glare of their blazing homes. They are described by Cotton Mather, as the veriest ruines of mankind which are to be found any where upon the face of the whole earth. "To think," he says, "on raising these hideous creatures unto the elevations of our holy religion, must argue more than common or else little sentiments in the undertaker." This picture of the aborigines is undoubtedly too darkly shaded, but it is such as the imagination would naturally paint, in an age that saw so much of their wild ferocity. In our own times, a different though equally erronequs view has been taken of their character. It has been portrayed in the stirring pages of poetry and fiction, invested with the attractions of a virtue it never possessed, and surrounded with the charms of a romance, which a more intimate acquaintance does not fail to destroy. Neither of these was the view adopted by Eliot. He recognised in them the elements of our common nature,-the germ of an immortal spirit, marred, indeed, by sin, and overshadowed by the rude passions that grew in rank luxuriance around it, but still a spirit whose energies barbarism could not crush, and whose existence time could not circumscribe. But in their character and modes of life, he saw little of beauty and little of virtue. One of the earliest convictions arising from bis intercourse with the Indians probably was, that it would be comparatively vain to teach them the principles of religion, unless they could be gradually reclaimed from a life of war and passion, instructed in the arts of peace, and trained to a condition more congenial to the powers and sympathies of their higher natures. He accordingly very soon began to devote himself to labors for their civil as well as their religious welfare. He early established among them a school, and proposed to them plans for a social organization. The Indians, with Waban for their leader, are soon found receiving from the colony a grant of land for a settlement, and framing laws for the regulation of their infant state. Mr. Eliot supplies them with some of the simpler implements of husbandry, and urges upon them such inducements to labor as would address themselves to the limited perceptions of a savage. Their first enactments relate to the promotion of cleanliness, decency, industry and good order, and are preserved, as curious specimens of savage legislation, and interesting illustrations of the manner in which a

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people take their earliest steps in civilization. Their new society prospers; they open a profitable traffic with the towns of the colony, and at length breathe the spirit of industry and begin to emulate the conveniences of civilized life. Thus was begun at Nonantum a settlement of praying Indians; for by this very appropriate appellation were Eliot's converts to Christianity designated.

Another place for religious meetings was at Neponset, within the limits of the present town of Dorchester. The instruction and civilization of the natives at these two places, seem to have been begun and carried on nearly simultaneously. Our limits forbid, that we should extract the sketch which the biographer presents, of the operations at these places. It is not a little entertaining, from the singularity of its incidents, while at the same time, it impresses us most deeply with the difficulty with which great truths are let into the mind of rude and barbarous man.

For more than a year, the labors of this devoted philanthropist had been confined almost exclusively to the immediate neighborhood of his own home. He had seen the mission prosper around him. The most formidable barriers to the accomplishment of its objects were beginning to yield. He had gained a knowledge of the language, the customs and character of the Indians, that inspired him with confidence, and induced him to extend the sphere of his pious labors to more distant places. His fame, too, had spread to remote regions and to tribes little known to the people of Boston and its vicinity. Many a wild hunter had been stayed in the chase, and many a wigwam's circle in the distant wilderness had been made to wonder by the story of Eliot's religion and of his praying Indians.

In the years 1647-8, he made several visits to Concord, Pawtucket on the Merrimac, and to Yarmouth on Cape Cod, accompanied in some by friends belonging to the colony, in others, by his Indian converts. To us, who now see NewEngland crossed by so many post-roads and rail-roads, and who look upon the places visited by Eliot as almost in our immediate neighborhood, there is no small difficulty in conceiving the weariness and privation that must have attended his journeyings. They were made through an almost pathless forest, over rivers without bridges, and often swollen by the heavy rains, amidst the cold and storms of winter, and the