supposed to amount to about eleven hundred; but among these there were as yet only two churches; and, indeed, the further progress of the gospel among the Indians was greatly interrupted by the war with Philip, a celebrated chief, which began the following year, many of the towns of praying Indians being broken up in consequence of it. In 1684, Mr. Eliot informs us, that their stated places of worship were reduced to four; but, besides these, there were some other places, where they occasionally met for divine service.* Notwithstanding these discouraging circumstances, Mr. Eliot persevered in his labours among the Indians, as long as his health and strength would permit; but being, at length, worn out with the infirmities of age, he was scarcely able to visit them oftener than once in two months, instead of every fortnight, as had been his usual practice. Even at Roxbury he was no longer able to perform the duties of the pastoral office to his own satisfaction; and, therefore, he very disinterestedly importuned his people to call another minister, because he could not die with comfort till he saw a good successor settled among them. "It is possible," said he, you may think the burden of maintaining two ministers too heavy for you; but I deliver you from that fear. I do here give back my salary to the Lord Jesus Christ; and, now, brethren, you may fix it on any man whom God shall make your pastor." But his church, with a handsome reply, assured him, that they would consider his very presence among them worth a salary, when he should be unable to do any further service among them. Having, at length, obtained an excellent young man for his colleague, the venerable Mr. Eliot cherished him with all the care and affection of a father toward a child. After this, for a year or two before his death, he could scarcely be persuaded to undertake any public service in the congregation, humbly pleading, what none but himself ever thought even for a moment, that it would be wrong to the souls of the people, for him to do any thing Gookin in Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i. p. 182, 189, 195.-Boyle's Works, vol. i. among them, when they were otherwise so much supplied to their advantage. One day, (Dr. Mather thinks it was the last he ever preached,) after a very distinct and useful exposition of the eighty-third Psalm, he concluded with an apology to his hearers, begging them, " to pardon the poorness, and meanness, and brokenness of his meditations;" but, added he, with singular humility, "My dear brother, here, will by and by mend all."* But though this excellent man imagined he could no longer be useful to the English, he thought, he might yet, perhaps, do some good among the negroes. He had long lamented the deplorable condition of these poor creatures, dragged from their native land, carried to a foreign shore, and reduced to slavery among strangers. He now, therefore, requested the English, within two or three miles of his house, to send their negroes to him once a week, that he might catechise and instruct them in the things which belonged to their everlasting peace. He did not live, however, to make much progress in this humble, yet disinterested undertaking. Even when he was able to do little without doors, he tried to do something within. There was a young boy in the neighbourhood, who, in his infancy, had fallen into the fire, and burned his face in such a manner, that he was now totally blind. The good old man, therefore, took him home to his house, with the view of teaching him; and he was so far successful, that the youth, in a short time, could repeat many chapters of the Bible from memory, and was able to construe with ease an ordinary piece of Latin. Such was the manner in which this venerable saint spent the evening of life. With him there was no day sine linea.† Being at length attacked with some degree of fever, he rapidly sunk under the ravages of his disorder, combined with the infirmities of old age. During his illness, when speaking about the evangelizing of the Indians, he said, "There is a dark cloud upon the work of the gospel among VOL. I. Mather, B. iii. pp. 180, 194, 206. + Ibid 207. them. The Lord revive and prosper that work, and grant that it may live when I am dead. It is a work I have been doing much and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recal that word, My doings. Alas! they have been poor, and small, and lean doings; and I will be the man who will cast the first stone at them all." One of the last expressions which were heard to drop from his lips were these emphatic words: "Welcome joy." He at length expired in the beginning of 1690, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and has since been known by the honourable, yet well earned title of THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIANS.* Previous to the death of Mr. Eliot, the church at Natick had an Indian minister settled among them; but it appears to have been in a languishing state.† In 1698, indeed, there were at that place about a hundred and eighty persons, a number greater than what they were estimated to be upwards of twenty years before; but the church was reduced to ten; namely, seven men and three women. Since that period, ‡ they have gradually diminished in number, and now they are nearly extinct. In 1753, there were in Natick, twentyfive families, besides several single persons. Some of the men became soldiers in the war with France, which began soon after. Several of them died while engaged in that service, and those who returned home brought with them the seeds of a contagious disorder, which, in two or three months, carried off upwards of twenty of the few who remained. In 1763, according to a census then taken, there Mather, B. iii. pp. 207, 173, 194. Mr. Eliot had several sons, and it was his earnest wish that they should all have been employed in the noble and important work of evangelizing the Indians. His eldest son, indeed, was not only the pastor of an English church, at a place now called Newtown, but, for several years, he regularly preached to the Indians once a fortnight at Pakemitt, and sometimes at Natick, and other places. He was highly esteemed by the most judicious of the Christian Indians, but died in early life, twenty years before his venerable father. Indeed, most of Mr. Eliot's children left the world before him; but not until they had given satisfactory evidence of their conversion to Christ. Hence, when some person asked him, how he could bear the death of such excellent children, the good old man replied, "My desire was that they should have served God on earth; but if he choose rather that they shall serve him in heaven, I have nothing to object against it: His will be done." Gookin in Mass. Hist. Coll, vol. i. p. 171.-Mather, B. iii. p. 174. Mather, B. iii. p. 194. B. vi. p. 61. + Holmes' American Annals, vol. ii. p. 37. were in Natick only thirty-seven Indians; but in this return, it is probable, the wandering Indians were not included.* Indeed, they so frequently change their place of residence, and are so intermarried with blacks and whites, that it is next to impossible to ascertain the precise number who may still remain. In 1797, it was supposed there were about twenty of the Natick Indians who were of pure blood, and either resided in that town, or belonged to it. Few of them, however, attended public worship; none of them were remarkable for piety; and, indeed, only two or three of them were members of a Christian church. There were none among them who retained the knowledge of their original language, so as to be able to speak it, though one old woman said she could understand it when spoken by others. We notice these particulars, minute as they are, because it is interesting to know the history and the present state of the Indian flock of the celebrated John Eliot.† Besides the Indians at Natick, there were, in 1764, eight or ten families at a place called Grafton; and in 1792, there were still about thirty persons who retained a part of their lands, and received an annual quit-rent from the white inhabitants. These, with a few other Indians at Stoughton, it is believed, are all the remains of the numerous and powerful tribes who anciently inhabited the colony of Massachusetts.‡ * Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. i. p. 195. Ibid. vol. v. p. 43. Ibid. vol. i. p. 195.Before leaving this part of our history, we may notice some curious circumstances which Dr. Mather mentions, with regard to the mode of instruction employed by the Roman Catholics in converting the Indians of America. They were extracted by him from the manuscript of a Jesuit missionary which had fallen into his hands, containing a catechism relative to the principles in which the poor Pagans were to be instructed, and cases of conscience with regard to their conduct in life. From the chapters concerning heaven and hell, we shall select a few particulars: Q How is the soil made in heaven? A. It is a very fair soil. They want neither for meat nor clothes; we have only to wish and we have them. Q. Are they employed in heaven? A. No. They do nothing. The fields yield corn, beans, pumpkins, and the like, without any tillage. Q. What sort of trees are there? A. Always green, full and flourishing. Q. Have they in heaven the same sun, the same wind, the same thunder that we have here? A. No. The sun ever shines; it is always fair weather. SECTION II. MARTHA'S VINEYARD. WHILE Mr. Eliot was employed in evangelizing the Indians in Massachusetts, the family of the Mayhews were engaged in the same noble undertaking in Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Elizabeth isles. Mr. Thomas Mayhew, senior, having obtained a grant of these islands, which were not originally included in any of the four governments of New-England,* placed his son, a young man of considerable learning and piety, with a few other English people, in Martha's Vineyard, in the year 1642. Being invited by his fellow-settlers to become their pastor, young Mr. Mayhew was not satisfied that his labours should be confined to so small a handful of his countrymen, but learned the Indian language with the view of Christianizing the natives, of whom, it is said, there were several thousands on this and the Q. But how are their fruits? A. In this respect they excel ours, that they are never wasted. You have no sooner plucked one, but you see another hanging in its room. In this manner the catechism goes on with regard to heaven. Concerning hell there are, among others, the following questions: Q. What sort of a soil is hell? A. A very wretched soil; it is a fiery pit in the centre of the earth. Q. Have they any light in hell? A. No. It is always dark; there is always smoke there; their eyes are always in pain; they can see nothing but devils. Q. What shaped things are the devils? A. Very ill shaped things; they go about with vizards on, and terrify men. Q. What do they eat in hell? A. They are always hungry; and the damned feed upon hot ashes and serpents. , Horrid water. Nothing but melted lead. Q. Do they not die in hell? 1. No. They eat one another every day; but God immediately restores and renews those that were eaten as a cropt plant in a little time shoots out again. Such is a specimen of this singular work. Had not Dr. Mather informed us, that s copy of it in the Iroquois language, with a translation annexed to it, had fallen into his own hands, we could scarcely have believed, that even Jesuit missionaries would have had recourse to such vile artifices for alluring the Indians to the profession of the Christian faith.-Mather, book iii. p. 203. * Hutcheson, vol. i. P. 161. |