Volume 2 — NOTES.
Reading edition
(7.) “That gentleman, sir, is the apostle of New-England.”—Page 156.
We believe we have anticipated, by three or four years, this title, so well earned and generally bestowed. We cannot pass the hallowed name of Eliot without pausing earnestly to beseech our youthful readers to study his history, in which they will find exemplified, from youth to extreme old age, the divine precepts of his Master. He was the first Protestant missionary to the Indians; for nearly half a century their instructer, friend, and father; and when, during the war with the terrific Philip of Mount Hope, fear had turned every hand and heart against them, and their utter extinction was regarded by most as necessary to the salvation of the English colonies, Eliot was still their indefatigable and fearless advocate. The Christian philanthropist will delight to follow this good man through his diocess of Indian churches; to see him surrounded by his simple catechumens, dealing out the bread of life to them; to go with him to his “prophet’s chamber” at Natick—that apartment prepared by the love of his Indian disciples, and consecrated by his prayers; and, finally, to stand by his bedside when, in extreme old age, like his prototype “the beloved apostle,” all other affections had melted into a flame of love. “Alas!” he said, “I have lost everything. My understanding leaves me. My memory—my utterance fails me; but I thank God my charity holds out still. I find that grows rather than fails.”
His name has been appropriately given to a flourishing missionary station, where the principle on which he at all times insisted is acted upon, viz., “that the Indians must be civilized, as well as, if not in order to, their being Christianized.” This Principle has no opposers in our age; and we cannot but hope that the present enlightened labours of the followers of Eliot will be rewarded with such success as shall convert the faint-hearted, the cold, and the skeptical into ardent promoters of missions to the Indian race.
(8.) “I know,” she said, “that it contains thy rule.”—Page 165.
This reply of Magawisca we have somewhere seen given as the genuine answer of an Indian to the solicitation of a missionary, but are not able now to refer to our authority.
(9.) “Moscutusett.”
Among the various conjectures respecting the etymology of the word Massachusetts, the following, communicated by Neal, appears the most satisfactory: “The sachem who governed this part of the country had his seat on a hill, about two leagues to the southward of Boston. It lies in the shape of an Indian arrow-head, which is called, in their language, ‘Mos’ or ‘Mons.’ A hill, in their language, is ‘Wetusett,’ pronounced Wechusett; hence the great sachem’s seat was called ‘Moscutusett,’ from whence, with a small variation, the province received the name of Massachusetts.”—Hist. of Boston.
This hill is in the town of Quincy, and now known by the name of “Sachem’s Hill.”
THE END.