Note 346 — Chapter X

"Among these was the celebrated Eliot. Notwithstanding the almost incredible hardships endured by Eliot during his missionary labors, he lived to the age of eighty-six. He expired in 1690, and has ever since been known by the well-earned title of Apostle to the Indians."—Missionary Records, p. 34.

Dr. Dwight says of him, "He was naturally qualified beyond almost any other man for the business of a missionary. In promoting among the Indians agriculture, health, morals, and religion, this great and good man labored with constancy, faithfulness, and benevolence which place his name not unworthily among those who are arranged immediately after the apostles of our Divine Redeemer." Eliot translated the Holy Scriptures into the Indian language. In 1661, the New Testament, dedicated to Charles II., was printed at Cambridge, in New England, and about three years afterward, it was followed by the Old Testament. This was the first Bible ever printed in America; and, though the impression consisted of 2000 copies, a second edition was required in 1685.—Ibid., p. 27.

"When at Harvard College, a copy of the Bible was shown me by Mr. Jared Sparks, translated by the missionary, Father Eliot, into the Indian tongue. It is now a dead language, although preached for several generations to crowded congregations."—Lyell's America, vol. i., p. 260.

"Eliot had become an acute grammarian by his studies at the English university of Cambridge. Having finished his laborious and difficult work, the Indian grammar, at the close of it, under a full sense of the difficulties he had encountered, and the acquisition he had made, he said, 'Prayers and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, do any thing.'"—Life of Eliot, p. 55.

"The Honorable Robert Boyle often strengthened Eliot's hands and encouraged him in his work—he who was not more admirable among philosophers for his discoveries in science, than he was beloved by Christians for his active kindness and his pious spirit."—Ibid., p. 64.

"Nor was Eliot alone. In the islands round Massachusetts, and within the limits of the Plymouth patent, missionary zeal and missionary enterprise were active; and the gentle Mayhew, forgetting the pride of learning, endeavored to win the natives to a new religion. At a later day, he took passage for New England to awaken interest there, and the ship in which he sailed was never more heard of. But such had been the force of his example, that his father, though bowed down with the weight of seventy years, resolved on assuming the office of the son whom he had lost, and till beyond the age of fourscore years and twelve, continued to instruct the natives, and with the happiest results. The Indians within his influence, though twenty times more numerous than the whites in their immediate neighborhood, preserved an immutable friendship with Massachusetts."—Bancroft's Hist of the United States, vol. ii., p. 97. See Missionary Records; Life of Eliot; Mayhew's Indian Converts; T. Prince's Account of English Ministers.