means to enable the Indians to understand religion preached in the English tongue, and will much further Mr. Gookin in learning the Indian tongue. Likewise Major Gookin holdeth and manageth his courts in the English tongue; which doth greatly further the Indians in learning law and government in the English tongue; which is a point of wisdom in civilizing them, that your honours have manifested your desires, that it might be attended.

The places, where the Indians meet to worship God, and sanctify the sabbath, are many; the most are stated places, others are occasional. The stated places, in the Massachusetts, since the wars, are contracted into four, Natick, Ponkipog, Wameset, and Chachaubunkkakowok. The occasional meetings are at places of fishing hunting, gathering chestnuts, in their seasons. Also since the wars, the Mauquaoys, making incursions upon the praying Indians, did cause them to make divers forts, to live safely in, and then they did there meet to worship God, and keep the sabbath.

In Plymouth Patent, there are about ten places, where they meet to worship God.

An intelligent person, of Martyn's Vineyard, reckoned up unto me ten places, where God is worshipped every Lord's day in that island.

At Nantucket there be about five places of prayer and keeping sabbaths.

The reason of this dispersion of places of publick meeting to worship God, is this; there is but here and there a spot of good land, fit for planting corn, with accommodation of fishing; these spots of good land lie at a great distance from each other; some four or five miles, some eight or nine miles: some ten or twelve miles, so that it is impossible for them, especially with women and children, to meet at one place; therefore all, that live together at one place, meet to worship God on the sabbath day.

...

As for the sending any numbers of Moses's Pentateuch, I beseech your honours to spare us in that; because so many as we send, so many bibles are maimed, and made incomplete, because they want the five books of Moses. We present your honours with one book, so far as we have gone in the work, and humbly beseech, that it may be acceptable, until the whole be finished; and then the whole impression (which is two thousand) is at your honours command. Our slow progress needeth an apology. We have been much hindered by the sickness this year. Our workmen have been all sick, and we have but few hands, one Englishman, and a boy, and one Indian; and many interruptions and diversions do befal us; and we could do but little this very hard winter. But I shall give your honours no further trouble at this time, only requesting the continuance of your prayers and protection. So I remain,

Your honour's to serve you in our Lord Jesus,

JOHN ELIOT.

Eliot's Brief Narrative, written in 1670, just twenty years before his death, was the last of his publications relating to the progress of Christianity among the Indians. Several earlier reports had been published in London. The Glorious Progress of the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, manifested in three Letters under the Hand of that famous Instrument of the Lord, Mr. John Eliot, and another from Mr. Thomas Mayhew, Jun., both Preachers of the Word, as well to the English as Indians in New England, had been published in London by Edward Winslow, in 1649. This has been reprinted in the Mass. His. Society's Collections, third series, vol. iv. In the same volume is reprinted Tears of Repentance: Or a further Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England, etc., by Eliot and Mayhew, first published in London in 1653, together with other important tracts of the same period, by Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, Rev. Henry Whitfield of Guilford, Conn., and others, upon the work of Eliot and the other missionaries among the Indians. The student can learn about all these tracts on the subject of the Christianizing of the Indians of New England in the bibliographic note prefixed to Marvin's reprint of the Brief Narrative. In the Mass. His. Society's Collections, first series, vol. iii, are nine letters from Eliot to the Honorable Robert Boyle, on the same general topic, the first dated Sept. 30, 1670, shortly after the issue of this tract, and the last, July 7, 1688, not long before Eliot's death. Boyle was for a time governor of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a generous contributor to the missionary work among the Indians; and Marvin probably conjectures rightly that these letters -one of which is included in the present leaflet filled the place which the publications had previously supplied, serving as reports of the progress of the work.

Of the work of Eliot and his associates among the Indians there is some account in all the histories of New England. The earliest life of Eliot is that by Cotton Mather (1691), afterwards embodied in his Magnalia. There are various later lives-by Convers Francis, Dearborn, Thornton and others, and a sketch by Miss Yonge in her Pioneers and Founders. Dr. Ellis devotes considerable attention to the missionary efforts among the Indians in his Red Man and White Man in North America. See also his chapter on "The Indians of Eastern Massachusetts," with the portrait of Eliot, in the first volume of the Memorial History of Boston. This volume contains much of value concerning Eliot; see the chapter on Roxbury in the Colonial Period," etc. Of special value is the chapter on "The Indian Tongue and its Literature as fashioned by Eliot and others," by J. Hammond Trumbull. The student can nowhere find a better brief account of Eliot's Indian Bible and its printing. See also Mr. Trumbull's Origin and Early Progress of Indian Missions in New England; the chapter on New England,” by Charles Deane, in the third volume of the Narrative and Critical History of America and further references to Eliot in the third and first volumes of that work.

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66

OF THE ORIGINAL DESIGN, RISE, PROGRESS AND PRESENT STATE OF THE INDIAN CHARITY-SCHOOL IN LEBANON, CONN.

UNDERSTANDING there are numbers of religious and charitably difpofed perfons, who only wait to know where their charities may be bestowed in the best manner for the advancement of the kingdom of the great Redeemer; and, fuppofing there may also be in fome, evil furmifings about, and a difpofition to difcredit a caufe which they don't love, and have no difpofition to promote; I have, to gratify the one, and prevent the mischiefs of the other, thought it my duty to give the publick a fhort, plain, and faithful narrative of the original design, rise, progrefs, and present state of the CharitySchool here, called Moor's Indian-Charity School, &c. And I hope there is need of little or nothing more than a plain and faithful relation of facts, with the grounds and reafons of them, to justify the undertaking, and all the pains and expence there has been, in the prosecution thereof. And to convince all perfons of ability, that this school is a proper object of their charity; and that whatever they shall contribute for the furtherance of it, will be an offering acceptable to God, and properly beftowed for the promoting a defign which the heart of the great Redeemer is infinitely fet upon.

The confiderations firft moving me to enter upon the design of educating the children of our heathen natives were such as these; viz.

The great obligations lying upon us, as God's covenant-people, who have all we have better than they in a covenant way, and consequently are under covenant-bonds to improve it in the best manner for the honour and glory of our liberal Benefactor. And can fuch want of charity to those poor creatures, as our neglect has shewn; and, our neglect of that which God has fo plainly made to be the matter of our care and duty; and that which the heart of the great Redeemer is fo fet upon, as that he never defired any

other compenfation for all the travail of his soul, can it, I say, be without great guilt on our part?

It has feem'd to me, he must be ftupidly indifferent to the Redeemer's cause and intereft in the world; and criminally deaf and blind to the intimations of the favour and displeasure of God in the difpenfations of his providence, who could not perceive plain intimations of God's difpleasure against us for this neglect, infcribed in capitals, on the very front of divine difpenfations, from year to year, in permitting the favages to be fuch a fore scourge to our land, and make fuch depredations on our frontiers, inhumanly butchering and captivating our people: not only in a time of war, but when we had good reason to think (if ever we had) that we dwelt fafely by them.

And there is good reason to think, that if one half which has been, for fo many years paft expended in building forts, manning and supporting them, had been prudently laid out in supporting faithful miffionaries, and school-masters among them, the instructed and civilized party would have been a far better defence than all our expensive fortreffes, and prevented the laying waste so many towns and villages: Witness the confequence of fending Mr. Sergeant to Stockbridge, which was in the very road by which they most ufually came upon our people, and by which there has never been one attack made upon us fince his going there; and this notwithstanding there has been, by all accounts, less appearance of the faving effects of the gospel there than in any other place, where fo much has been expended for many years past.

And not only our covenant bonds, by which we owe our all to God, and our divine Redeemer our pity to their bodies in their miferable, needy state- our charity to their perishing souls — and our own peace, and safety by them, fhould constrain us to it; but alfo gratitude, duty, and loyalty to our rightful sovereign. How great the benefit which would hereby accrue to the Crown of GreatBritain, and how much the interefts of His Majesty's dominions, especially in America, would be promoted hereby, we can hardly conceive.

And the Chriftianizing the natives of this land is expressly mentioned in the royal charter granted to this colony, as a motive inducing His Majefty to grant that royal favour to our fathers. And fince we are rifen up in their stead, and enjoy the inestimable favour granted to them, on this confideration; What can excuse our not performing to our utmost, that which was engaged by, and reasonably expected from, them? But that which is of greatest weight, and should powerfully excite and perfwade us hereto, are the many commands, ftrong motives, precious promises, and tremendous threatnings, which fill fo great a part of the facred pages:

and are so perfectly calculated to awaken all our powers, to fpread the knowledge of the only true God, and Saviour, and make it as extensive and common as poffible. It is a work, in which every one in his place, and according to his ability, is under facred bonds to use his utmost endeavours. But for brevity fake, I omit a particular mention of them, fuppofing none have read their Bibles attentively, who do not know, that this is a darling subject of them; and that enough is there spoken by the mouth of God himself, to obviate and filence all the objections which floth, covetoufness, or love of the world can suggest against it. - [The religious obligation to the work is urged at some further length.]

These were fome of the confiderations which, I think, had fome influence to my making an attempt in this affair; though I did not then much think of any thing more than only to clear myself, and family, of partaking in the public guilt of our land and nation in fuch a neglect of them.

And as there were few or none who seemed fo much to lay the neceffity and importance of the case to heart, as to exert themselves in earneft, and lead the way therein, I was naturally put upon confideration and enquiry what methods might have the greatest probability of fuccefs; and upon the whole was fully perfwaded that this, which I have been pursuing, had by far the greatest probability of any that had been proposed, viz. by the miffion of their own fons in conjunction with the English; and that a number of girls should also be instructed in whatever should be neceffary to render them fit, to perform the female part, as house-wives, school-miftreffes, tayloreffes, &c. and to go and be with these youth, when they fhall be hundreds of miles distant from the English on the business of their miffion: And prevent a neceffity of their turning favage in their manner of living, for want of those who may do those offices for them, and by this means support the reputation of their miffion, and alfo recommend to the favages a more rational and decent manner of living, than that which they are in-and thereby, in time, remedy and remove that great, and hitherto infuperable difficulty, fo conftantly complained of by all our miffionaries among them, as the great impediment in the way to the fuccefs of their miffion, viz. their continual rambling about; which they can't avoid so long as they depend fo much upon fishing, fowling, and hunting for their fupport. And 1 am more and more perfwaded, that I have fufficient and unanswer able reasons to justify this plan.

As,

I. The deep rooted prejudices they have fo generally imbibed against the English, that they are selfish, and have fecret defigns to incroach upon their lands, or otherwise wrong them in