time could furnish. There is a story that Eliot wrote the whole with a single pen. It went through a good many editions, but is now very rare, and with Eliot's Catechism, and translations of Baxter's chief works, and a metrical version of the Psalms, remains the only vestige of the language of the Mohicans.
There were now several Indian congregations, one in especial at the island called Martha's Vineyard, under the charge of an Indian pastor, John Hiacoomes, who is said to have been the first red-skinned convert, and who had made proof of much true Christian courage. Once in the act of prayer he received a severe blow from a Sachem, and would have been killed if some English had not been present; but all his answer was, 'I have two hands. I had one hand for injuries, and the other for God. While I did receive wrong with the one, the other laid the greater hold on God.'
When some of the Powaws, or medicine men, were boasting that they could, if they would, destroy all the praying Indians at once, Hiacoomes made reply: 'Let all the Powaws in the island come together, I'll venture myself in the midst among them all. Let them use all their witchcrafts. With the help of God, I'll tread upon them all!'
By which defiance he wonderfully 'heartened' his flock, who, Christians as they were, had still been beset by the dread of the magic arts, in which, as we have seen, even their White teachers did not wholly disbelieve.
Such a man as this was well worthy of promotion, and Mr. Eliot hoped to educate his more promising scholars, so as to supply a succession of learned and trained native pastors. Two young men, named Joel and Caleb, were sent to Harvard College, Cambridge, where they both were gaining distinguished success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel, who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of Nantucket, and, with the rest of the ship's company, was either drowned or murdered by the Indians. The name of Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still to be seen in the registers of those who took their degree, and there are two Latin and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of an eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, Senior Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth Mohican word! Caleb's constitution proved unable to endure College discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his degree. Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the Indians; Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them. An Indian College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an 'Indian logick primer.' It was a wonderful feat, considering the loose unwieldy words of the language.
From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot's years of chief success. His own vigour was unabated, and he had Major Gookin's hearty co-operation. There had been time for a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been time for the first love of his converts to wax cool. There had been a long interval of average peace and goodwill between English and natives, and there seemed good reason to suppose that Christianity and civilization would keep them friends, if not fuse them together. There were eleven hundred Christian Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin's computation, with six regularly constituted 'churches' after the fashion of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called old and seven new, where praying Indians lived, for the most part, in a well-conducted, peaceable manner, though now and then disorderly conduct would take place, chiefly from drunkenness. Several Sachems had likewise been converted, in especial Wanalanset, the eldest son of the famous old chief Passaconnaway. After four years of hesitation whether he should, as he said, quit his old canoe and embark in a new one, he came to the conclusion that the old canoe was floating down the stream of destruction, and manfully embraced the faith, although at the cost of losing many of his tribe, who deserted him on his profession of Christianity.
But there is always a period of check and disappointment in every great and holy work. The tide of evil may be driven into ebb for a time, but it always rallies and flows back upon the servant of God, and usually when the prime of his strength is past, and he is less able to withstand. Most good and great men have closed their eyes upon apparent failure and disappointment in what is especially their own task, and, like the first great Leader and Lawgiver, have had to cry, 'Show Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory.' Often the next generation does see the success, and gather the fruits; but the strong, wise, scholarly, statesman-like Apostle of the Indians was destined to see his work swept away like snow before the rage and fury of man, and to leave behind him little save a great witness and example. At least he had the comfort of knowing that the evil did not arise among his own children in the faith, but came from causes entirely external, and as much to be preferred as persecution is better than corruption.
The Sachem nearest to Plymouth had been at the first arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers, Massasoiet, chief of the Wampanongs, who had kept the peace out of fear. His son Alexander had followed his example, but it was current among the English that he had died of 'choler,' on being detected in a plot against them, and his successor, Philip, was a man of more than common pride, fierceness, cunning, and ability. These were only names given them by the English; none of them were Christians. Mr. Eliot had made some attempts upon Philip, but had been treated with scorn. The Sachem, twisting a button upon the minister's coat, told him he cared not
However, there were indications that he was endeavouring to unite all the surrounding tribes in an alliance against the colony. A murder of an Englishman had taken place, and the Government at Plymouth required all natives to surrender the fire-arms they had obtained from the English. Even Philip consented to deliver them up until the English should see no further cause for detaining them. Upon this, in June 1671, Eliot wrote a remarkable letter to Mr. Prince, the Governor of Plymouth, requiring him not to detain the arms, especially of Philip. 'My reasons are,' he says, 'first, lest we render ourselves more afraid of them and their guns than indeed we are or have cause to be. Alas! it is not the gun, but the man; nor, indeed, is it the man, but our sin that we have cause to be afraid of. Secondly, your so doing will open an effectual door to the entertainment of the Gospel.' Probably Mr. Eliot was right, and the keeping the arms only irritated the high-spirited chief, who said to the messenger of the Governor of Massachusetts, 'Your governor is but a subject. I will not treat but with my brother, King Charles of England.'
For four years enmity smouldered on. The rights of the dispute will never be known. The settlers laid all upon Philip's machinations, except those who lived near his wigwams and knew him best; and they said that so far from entering into a conspiracy, he always deplored the war, but was forced on by the rage and fury of the young braves, over whom the Sachems had no real power, and who wanted to signalize their valour, and could not fail to have their pride insulted by the demeanour of the ordinary English. One instance of brutality on the river Saco is said to have been the immediate cause of the war in that district. Some English sailors, seeing a canoe with an Indian woman and her infant, and having heard that a papoose could swim like a duck, actually upset the canoe to make the experiment. The poor baby sank, and the mother dived and brought it up alive, but it died so soon after, that the loss was laid to the charge of the cruel men by the father, who was a Sachem named Squando, of considerable dignity and influence, a great medicine man.
On Philip's border to the southward, a plantation called Swawny was attacked and burnt by the Indians in the June of 1675. He is said to have shed tears (impassible Indian as he was) at the tidings, foreseeing the utter ruin of his people; and, twenty days after, Squando's influence led to another attack 200 miles off, and this was viewed as a sign of complicity with Philip.
There was deadly terror among the English. The Indians swarmed down at night on lonely villages and farmhouses, slew, scalped, burnt, and now and then carried off prisoners to be tortured to death, and children to tell by and by strange tales of life in the wigwams. The militia were called out, but left their houses unprotected. At Newich-wannock, the farmhouse of a man named Tozer was attacked by the Indians when only tenanted by fifteen women and children. A girl of eighteen, who was the first to see the approach, bravely shut the door and set her back against it; thus giving time for the others to escape by another door to a better secured building. The Indians chopped the door to pieces with their hatchets, knocked the girl down, left her for dead, and hurried on in pursuit of the others, but only came up with two poor little children, who had not been able to get over the fence. The rest were saved, and the brave girl recovered from her wounds; but other attacks ended far more fatally for the sufferers, and the rage and alarm of the New Englanders were great. A few of the recently taught and unbaptized Indians from what were called the 'new praying towns' had joined their countrymen; and though the great body of the converts were true and faithful, the English confounded them all in one common hatred to the Red- skin. The magistrates and Government were not infected by this blind passion, and did all they could to restrain it, showing trust in the Christian natives by employing them in the war, when they rendered good and faithful service; but the commonalty, who were in the habit of viewing the whole people as Hivites and Jebusites, treated these allies with
