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Page 15
Sometimes, while thus at work, he was visited by learned men, who
desired to know what literary undertaking Mr. Elliot had in hand. They,
like himself, had been bred in the studious cloisters of a university,
and were supposed to possess all the erudition which mankind has hoarded
up from age to age. Greek and Latin were as familiar to them as the
babble of their childhood. Hebrew was like their mother tongue. They had
grown gray in study; their eyes were bleared with poring over print and
manuscript by the light of the midnight lamp.
And yet, how much had they left unlearned! Mr. Eliot would put into
their hands some of the pages, which he had been writing; and behold!
the gray-headed men stammered over the long, strange words, like a
little child in his first attempts to read. Then would the apostle call
to him an Indian boy, one of his scholars, and show him the manuscript,
which had so puzzled the learned Englishmen.
"Read this, my child," said he, "these are some brethren of mine, who
would fain hear the sound of thy native tongue."
Then would the Indian boy cast his eyes over the mysterious page, and
read it so skilfully, that it sounded like wild music. It seemed as if
the forest leaves were singing in the ears of his auditors, and as if
the roar of distant streams were poured through the young Indian's
voice. Such were the sounds amid which the language of the red man had
been formed; and they were still heard to echo in it.
The lesson being over, Mr. Eliot would give the Indian boy an apple or a
cake, and bid him leap forth into the open air, which his free nature
loved. The apostle was kind to children, and even shared in their
sports, sometimes. And when his visitors had bidden him farewell, the
good man turned patiently to his toil again.
No other Englishman had ever understood the Indian character so well,
nor possessed so great an influence over the New England tribes, as the
apostle did. His advice and assistance must often have been valuable to
his countrymen, in their transactions with the Indians. Occasionally,
perhaps, the governor and some of the counsellors came to visit Mr.
Eliot. Perchance they were seeking some method to circumvent the forest
people. They inquired, it may be, how they could obtain possession of
such and such a tract of their rich land. Or they talked of making the
Indians their servants, as if God had destined them for perpetual
bondage to the more powerful white man.
Perhaps, too, some warlike captain, dressed in his buff-coat, with a
corslet beneath it, accompanied the governor and counsellors. Laying his
hand upon his sword hilt, he would declare, that the only method of
dealing with the red men was to meet them with the sword drawn, and the
musket presented.
But the apostle resisted both the craft of the politician, and the
fierceness of the warrior.
"Treat these sons of the forest as men and brethren," he would say, "and
let us endeavor to make them Christians. Their forefathers were of that
chosen race, whom God delivered from Egyptian bondage. Perchance he has
destined us to deliver the children from the more cruel bondage of
ignorance and idolatry. Chiefly for this end, it may be, we were
directed across the ocean."
When these other visitors were gone, Mr. Eliot bent himself again over
the half written page. He dared hardly relax a moment from his toil. He
felt that, in the book which he was translating, there was a deep human,
as well as heavenly wisdom, which would of itself suffice to civilize
and refine the savage tribes. Let the Bible be diffused among them, and
all earthly good would follow. But how slight a consideration was this,
when he reflected that the eternal welfare of a whole race of men
depended upon his accomplishment of the task which he had set himself!
What if his hands should be palsied? What if his mind should lose its
vigor? What if death should come upon him, ere the work were done? Then
must the red man wander in the dark wilderness of heathenism for ever.
Impelled by such thoughts as these, he sat writing in the great chair,
when the pleasant summer breeze came in through his open casement; and
also when the fire of forest logs sent up its blaze and smoke, through
the broad stone chimney, into the wintry air. Before the earliest bird
sang, in the morning, the apostle's lamp was kindled; and, at midnight,
his weary head was not yet upon its pillow. And at length, leaning back
in the great chair, he could say to himself, with a holy triumph,--"The
work is finished!"
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