THE

New-York Miffionary Magazine,

AND

Repofitory of Religious Intelligence.

To the Publisher of the New-York Miffionary Magazine.

SIR,

I fend you for publication, a fhort account of Mr. Eliot, who, for his extraordinary and fuccefsful labours in propagating the gospel among the American Indians has been called their Apoftle. A complete hiftory of Indian Miffions, from Eliot's time to the prefent, would be highly interefting and useful; it would be useful to thofe particularly who are engaged as Indian Miffionaries. By fhewing them the conduct and fuccefs of others, by teaching them from what fources they may expect oppofition, and by giving them a knowledge of the manner of the Indians, it would enable them to give a proper direction to their conduct; and, above all, by fhewing the active labours of their predeceffors, it would animate their own zeal, and prompt them to perfevering activity in their important work.

Many pious and judicious men have defpaired of any great fuccefs from attempts to chriftianize the Indians. But, Sir, we know not what extraordinary effects might (with the bleffing of God) be produced from the labours of Miffionaries poffeffed of the talents, the piety, the flaming zeal, the industry, the prudence, perfeverance, and bravery of an Eliot. Yours, &c.

New-Jersey, March 6, 1801. VOL. II. No. 3.

A

HAMLET.

A fhort Account of the Rev. JOHN ELIOT, the Apofile of the American Indians, extracted from Mr. MATHER'S Hiftory of his Life.

MR

R. JOHN ELIOT was a native of England-he came to New-England in the month of November, 1631, accompanied by a number of puritans, who fled from the perfecutions of their native country, and braved the dangers of the Atlantic, and the horrors of the howling wilds of America, that they might here attend to, and maintain unmolefted, all the pure inftitutions of the Lord Jefus Chrift. Soon after Mr. Eliot's arrival in New-England, he took the pastoral care of a felect number of his pious friends, who, about this time, came from England, and settled themselves in the town of Roxbury, near Boston.

Mr. Eliot was eminent for his piety, zeal, and charity. As a minifter he was laborious and faithful; his man, ner of preaching was plain and powerful, accompanied with gracefulness and energy. He would found the trumpets of God against all vice, with a moft penetrating livelinefs, and make his pulpit another mount Sinai, where thunderings and lightnings were displayed against the breaches of God's holy law. There was a peculiar fervour in the rebukes he bestowed upon carnality, in the profeffors of religion; he was then a Boanerges, and fpake as many thunderbolts as words. There was ufually in his fermons much of Chrift; he would mention that name in his difcourfes, with a frequency like that with which St. Paul ufes it in his epiftles, and he could fay with the apoftle, I determined to know nothing but Jefus Chrift.

As a chriftian and a minifter Eliot fhone with peculiar luftre; but it is by the memorable titles of Evangelift, and the Apoftle of the American Indians, that he has chiefly been fignalized. In the discharge of thefe offices, the energy and benevolence of his comprehensive mind had

Quot verba, tot fulmina.

a wide field for their exertion; at once to civilize and chriftianize a race of men over whom the prince of darknefs had an abfolute empire, who were fierce and favage, who were grofsly ignorant, and strongly attached to their fuperftitious customs, was a work of no fmall magnitude, and argued more than common fentiments in the undertaker; but the faith of an Eliot could encounter it. It appears that no other befide the holy Spirit of God first moved him to the bleffed work of evangelizing these perishing Indians; but when the work was begun, he received confiderable encouragement; good men applauded the undertaking; the ininifters efpecially encourged him, and thofe in the neighbourhood of Roxbury fupplied his pulpit, in part, during his abfence. There was alfo a liberal contribution made in England, for the promoting of this pious work,What appears, befides, to have encouraged Mr. Eliot in his undertaking, was the proffibility of the American Indians being the pofterity of the difperfed and rejected Ifraelites, concerning whom our God has promised, that they fhall yet be faved, by the deliverer coming to turn away ungodliness from them. Not unwilling to believe this, the Indians were more beloved by Eliot for their fuppofed father's fake; and the fatigues of his travels went on the more cheerfully because of fuch poffibili

ties.

*

The first step which he judged neceffary to be taken was, to learn the Indian language, which he did, by hiring a native to teach him, and, with laborious care and kill, he reduced the language to a grammar, which he afterwards published. Having acquired a knowledge of the language, he began, in the year 1646, to preach the

*He saw the Indians using many parables in their discourses, much given to the anointing of their heads, much delighted in dancing, especially after their victories, computing their time by nights and months, giving dowries for wives, and causing their women to dwell by themselves at certain seasons, and accustoming themselves to grievous mournings for the dead; all which were usual among the Israelites. He saw also the judgments denounced against the Israelites strangely fulfilled on the Indians, &c. &c.

gofpel of our Lord Jefus Chrift to these defolate outcafts. His firft difcourfes to them were well received; it was his wisdom that he began with them upon fuch principles, as they themselves had already fome notion of, fuch as an heaven for good, and a hell for bad people when they died. It broke his gracious heart within him, to fee what floods of tears fell from the eyes of feveral among these degenerate favages, at the firft addreffes he made to them. Having begun this great work of teaching the Indians, incredible were the hardships he endured, in the prosecution of it. His own words, in a letter addressed to a friend, are, "I have not been dry, night nor day, from the third day of the week, unto the sixth, but fo travelled, and, at night, pull off my boots, wring my stockings, and on with them again, and fo continue, but God fteps in and helps. I have confidered the word of God, in 2 Tim. ii. 3. "Endure hardships as a good

foldier of Chrift."

It was one of his chief cares to bring the illiterate Indians into the use of schools and books. He quickly procured the benefit of fchools for them, where many of them learned to read and write. Several of them received a liberal education, in the college, and one or two took their degree with the graduates. It was his chief defire, that the facred fcripture might not be hidden from them. He, therefore, with vaft labour, tranflated the Holy Bible into the Indian language.* The Bible being juftly made the leader of all the reft, a little Indian library quickly followed. Primers, Grammars, the Practice of Piety, Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, fome of Shepard's works, with fuch Catechifms as there was occafion for, were printed in the Indian language.

The Indians, who had felt the impreffions of Eliot's ministry, were diftinguished by the names of praying Indians, and they were quickly defirous of a more fettled way of living conformable to the manners of the English.. At feveral places they combined and fettled; the place

*This Bible was printed at Cambridge, and was the first that was ever printed in America.

vernment.

of greatest note among them was Natick. Here, in the year 1651, they compacted themselves into a town, and firft applied themselves to the forming of their civil goIn this Mr. Eliot affifted them, and on a folemn faft made a public vow, "that feeing these Indians were not prepoffeffed with any form of goverment, he would inftruct them into fuch a form as we had written in the word of God, that fo they might be a people, in all things, ruled by the Lord." Accordingly he expounded to them the 18th chapter of Exodus, and then they chose rulers of hundreds, of fifties, of tens, and entered into a covenant to give themselves and their children unto God to be his people. On this occafion Mr. Eliot expreffed himself in the following manner: "God will bring nations into diftrefs and perplexity, that fo they may be forced unto the fcriptures; all governments will be thaken, that men may be forced at length to pitch upon that firm foundation, the word of God."*

After the Indians had fettled in their towns, they abandoned that polygamy which had been common among them. They made fevere laws against fornication, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, and other immoralities. They were then defirous of having the eftablishment of a church order among them, with the scveral ordinances and privileges of a church communion. This was granted, and Mr. Eliot administered baptifm and the holy fupper among them.

Although Mr. Eliot had abundant fuccefs in his labours, yet he frequently laboured under much opposition and hindrance in his work. The principal oppofition was from the Sachems or Indian princes. Thefe, generally, did all they could to hinder their fubjects from receiving the gofpel. Mr. Eliot would fay, "Šuch Indians are naught, and the reafon they are bad is, be

This prophecy (if it may be called one), appears to be fulfilling, as far as it respects the perplexity of nations, and shaking all governments. The shock is felt in a greater or less degree in every quarter of the globe. Whether this will drive men to that firm foundation, the word of God, is yet to be known.