once a duty and a privilege to assist in promoting it abroad. They feel assured that he that watereth shall himself be refreshed, and that, in complying so far as they can with their Saviour's command to "preach the Gospel to every creature," they are most likely to secure the blessing of that Saviour upon their country. And facts abundantly prove that they are right.

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his glory, we may with boldness go on to the settling of so hopeful a work, which tendeth to the reducing and conversion of such savages as remain wandering in desolation and distress, to civil society and the Christian religion." And in this, the charter professes to favour the "worthy disposition" of the petitioners to whom it was granted. Nothing could be more natural, therefore, than that John Robinson, Moreover, our churches have a special pastor of that part of the church which rereason for the interest they take in for-mained at Leyden, in Holland, should exeign missions. No churches owe so much to the spirit of missions as they do. Much of the country was colonized by men who came to it not only as a refuge for their faith when persecuted elsewhere, but as a field of missionary enterprise; and their descendants would be most unfaithful to the high trust that has been bequeathed to them, did they not strenuously endeavour to carry out the principles of their forefathers. Alas, we have to mourn that we have, after all, done so little to impart the glorious Gospel, to which our country owes so much, to nations still ignorant of it! Still, we have done something, and the candid reader will perhaps admit that we have not been altogether wanting in our duty, nor greatly behind the churches of most other countries in this enterprise.

CHAPTER II.

claim, in his letter to the governor of the colony at Plymouth, "Oh that you had converted some before you killed any! But, in fact, the Plymouth colonists applied themselves to the conversion of the natives from the very first. They endeavoured to communicate the knowledge of the Gospel to the scattered Indians around them, and took pains to establish schools for their instruction. The result was, that several gave satisfactory evidence, living and dying, of real conversion to God. A poor, small colony, struggling for its very existence with all manner of hardships, could not be expected to do much in this way, yet in 1636 we find that it made a legal provision for the preaching of the Gospel among the Indians, and for the establishment of courts to punish trespasses committed against them.

The Massachusetts charter sets forth that, "to win and incite the natives of that country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian Faith, in our royal

EARLIER EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORI- intention and the adventurer's free profes

GINES.

NOTWITHSTANDING the common mistake at the present day, of those who conceive that religious liberty, and to some extent, also, the enjoyment of political rights, were the sole inducements that led to the original colonization of the United States, we have seen that the plantations of both Virginia and New-England were designed to conduce to the spread of Christianity by the conversion of the Aborigines, as is proved both by the royal charters establishing those early colonies, and by the expressed sentiments of the Massachusetts

sion, is the principal end of the plantation." The seal of the colony had for its device the figure of an Indian, with the words of the Macedonian entreaty," Come over and help us.' And here, as at Plymouth, some not altogether abortive attempts were made to convert the natives from the very first.

Thus, these two colonies might be considered as self-supporting missions, and rank among the earliest Protestant missionary enterprises. The Swedes had in the preceding century done something for their benighted countrymen in the northern part of that kingdom. French Huguesettlers. nots, too, as we have seen, made an atThe royal charter granted to the Plym-tempt so early as 1556, under the auspices outh Company, having referred to the depopulation of the country by pestilence and war, and its lying unclaimed by any other Christian power, goes on to say, "In contemplation and serious consideration whereof, we have thought it fit, according to our kingly duty, so much as in us lieth, to second and follow God's sacred will, rendering thanks to his divine Majesty for his gracious favour in laying open and revealing the same unto us before any other Christian prince or state; by which means, without offence, and as we trust to

of the brave and good Coligny, to carry the Gospel to America, by founding a settlement in Brazil. Calvin furnished sev-eral pastors for it from his school at Geneva. But Villagagnon, who took the lead, having relapsed to Romanism, put three of the Genevan pastors to death; whereupon some of the colonists returned to Europe, and the remainder were massacred by the Portuguese. A subsequent attempt, made under the same auspices, to plant a Protestant colony in Florida, also failed. Thus, even assuming, which

is not very evident, that these attempts were of a missionary character, certain it is that the New-England colonies may be regarded as the first successful enterprises of the kind.

But that very year (1675), King Philip, the chief of the Pokanoket tribe, instigated by his hatred of Christianity, and still more, probably, by jealousy of the growing power of the English settlers, made an unprovoked war upon the colonies. It ended in the annihilation of his party, not, however, without vast injury to the "praying settlements." Still, though the Gospel experienced a check, it soon began again to make progress, so that in 1696 there were thirty Indian churches in Massachusetts colony, and, two years later, 3000 reputed " converts."

In 1646, the Massachusetts Legislature passed an act for the encouragement of Christian missions among the Indians, and that same year the celebrated John Eliot began his labours at Nonantum, now forming part of the township of Newton, about six miles from Boston. Great success attended this good man's preaching, and other modes of instruction. Nor were his labours confined to the Indians near Bos- In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Long ton. From Cape Cod to Worcester, over Island, which belonged to the province of a tract of country near 100 miles long, he New-York, though its eastern part was colmade repeated journeys, preaching to the onized by emigrants from New-England, native tribes, whose language he had thor- missionary efforts were less successful. oughly mastered, and had translated the Still, the Gospel was not wholly without Scriptures and other Christian books into effect, and portions of the Narragansett, it. Both editions of his Indian Bible, the Pequod, Nantick, Mohegan, and Montauk one of 1500 copies in 1663, the other of tribes were converted to Christianity, and 2000 copies in 1685, were printed at Cam-long formed "Christian settlements," some bridge, near Boston, and were the only Bibles printed in America until long after. Eliot, who has ever since been called the "Apostle of the Indians," died in 1690, at the age of eighty-five. "Wel-er-country from the first, that “The Sociecome joy," was one of his last expressions. His labours, and those of others whom he engaged in the same great work, were blessed to the conversion of many souls, and many settlements of "praying Indians" were formed in the country round Boston.

But Eliot was not the first who preached the Gospel with success to the Indians in New-England. Thomas Mayhew began his labours among them on the island called Martha's Vineyard, in 1643. In 1646 he sailed for England to solicit aid; but the ship was lost at sea. His father, Thomas Mayhew, the proprietor of the island, though seventy years of age, then undertook the task, and continued it till 1681, when he died, at the age of ninety-three. His grandson succeeded; and for five generations, till the death of Zachariah Mayhew in 1803, aged eighty-seven years, that family supplied pastors to the Indians living on Martha's Vineyard.

remnants of which exist to this day.

The news respecting the progress of the Gospel among the Indians in New-England excited so much interest in the moth

ty for Propagating the Gospel in NewEngland" was incorporated in England so early as 1649, and though its charter was annulled at the Restoration in 1660, a new one was granted the following year, reorganizing the society, under the title of "The Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen Nations of New-England and the parts adjacent in America." The celebrated Robert Boyle took a great interest in it, and was its "governor" or president for thirty years. The good Baxter was its friend. In 1698, "The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge" was founded by members of the Established Church in England; and in 1701, “The Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts" was instituted. This last joined with the first in aiding the American missions, as did also, at a later day, "The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge," which was founded in Scotland. A considerable portion of the funds expended by these soIn the Plymouth colony we find honour- cieties, in the missions among the Indians, able mention made, among those who la- was contributed by the churches in Amerboured to evangelize the Indians during ica; for, before the Revolution, they had Eliot's lifetime, of Messrs. Treat, Tup- no independent missionary organizations per, and Cotton; while in Massachusetts, of their own, owing to their dependant conbesides Eliot, there were Messrs. Goskin, dition as colonies. In 1762, the MassachuThatcher, and Rawson; and in Connecti- setts Legislature incorporated a society cut, Messrs. Fitch and Pierson. The re-formed at Boston, "for promoting Christian sult of their united efforts was seen in knowledge among the Indians in North 1675, in fourteen settlements of "praying America," but the ratification of this act by Indians, twenty-four congregations, and the crown being refused, the missions had twenty-four Indian preachers." Besides still to be conducted on behalf of the socireligious instruction, the Indians were eties in Great Britain, through American taught agriculture, and the other most ne- committees formed at Boston and Newcessary arts of civilized life. York.

In 1734, Mr. John Sergeant began to la- | preached afterward to the Indians at the bour among some Mohegans whom he had Forks of the Delaware, in Pennsylvania, gathered round him at Stockbridge, in Mas- the site of the present town of Easton. sachusetts, whence the name given them ever after of " Stockbridge Indians." That good man, whose labours were greatly blessed, died in 1749, whereupon these Indians passed under the care of the great Jonathan Edwards, who had been settled at Northampton. It was while labouring as an humble missionary at Stockbridge that he wrote his celebrated treatises on the "Freedom of the Will" and "Original Sin."

proximity to the white men's settlements, these they often visited with the skins of animals or blankets thrown over their shoulders, and their extremities exposed in the coldest weather; and then, after lounging about the houses of the colonists, and taking such presents as might be of fered, they returned to their comfortless wigwams without having acquired the slightest desire to exchange their wretch-dian settlements to be found in all the Ated mode of living for the conveniences and comforts they had just witnessed. They were too fond of the habits in which they had been nurtured, and too averse to every thing like steady industry, to seek any change.

the soil. This seems to have suggested almost all the subsequent efforts made to obtain per fas aut nefas, the territories marked out by those charters. Thus the poor Indians had no certain resting-place. A few reservations which certain remnants of partially Christianized and civilized tribes have retained in some parts of New-Eng-land and New-York, are now the only Inlantic States. Had the wise though much vilified plan, pursued for some years past by the United States government, been sooner adopted- had the tribes whose lands were included in the royal charters been all collected on one territory, beyond the boundaries of any charter, and ample enough for their support by hunting in the first instance, and afterward by tillage, even the limited attempts that were made to civilize them might have taken effect. But, alas! where was there a territory ample enough to be found over which no charter extended its claims? At last, by the acquisition of Louisiana, this desideratum was supplied, and men, as benevolent as America has ever possessed, soon comprehended the important use that might be made of it, and pressed it upon the attention of the government. Accordingly, the country lying between the present States of Arkansas and Missouri and the Great American Desert, which stretches as far west as the Oregon Mountains, was set apart for the purpose, being sufficiently large, and containing much good land, and to it the government has succeeded in removing above twenty tribes, or remnants of tribes, from its own organized States and Territories. Soon all that remain will fol

Nor were the colonists wanting in efforts to induce their savage neighbours to adopt civilized usages. Provision was made in almost every treaty that they should be supplied with articles of comfort, and agricultural and other useful implements. But brandy, alas! was included at times, that being thought, in those days of ignorance, one of the first requisites of life-equally necessary to the civilized and uncivilized man. Addresses without number were presented to "chiefs" and "councils" by the colonial governors in favour of civilization, but these were all in vain. The little that was done must be ascribed to the missionaries sent to them, chiefly by the churches in the colonies. These succeeded, in several instances, in partially civilizing the Indians among whom they laboured, and to this the still extant remnants of tribes may be said to owe their preservation to this day, inasmuch as those in which Christianity never gained any footing, and in which agriculture and the mechanical arts never made any prog-low, so that there will be an Indian popuress, almost wholly disappeared, either by becoming extinct, or by being merged in other uncivilized and heathen tribes.

lation of above 100,000 souls on a compact territory, stretching about 500 or 600 miles from north to south, and about 200 from The result would, doubtless, have been east to west. Thither, also, have the mismuch more favourable had the missionary sionaries, who had been labouring among spirit of the earliest colonists continued those tribes, gone; and though the remoto distinguish their followers. But, alas! val of the several nations from their anmere cupidity tempted many to those cient homes, and from the graves of their shores for the sole object of enriching forefathers, has been followed by some themselves by all practicable means, how-years of that hardship and suffering which ever unjustifiable, and often by overreaching the poor ignorant savage. Nay, even good men suffered themselves to be too much influenced by the horrid massacres often committed by the Indians upon the frontier settlements in their wars with the colonists. These atrocities could hardly fail to cool the zeal for promoting the best interests of their barbarous neighbours, which such men had previously felt.

all removals from ancient settlements, whether more or less civilized, to the denser forests must occasion, yet they are surmounting these, and gradually establishing themselves in their new homes. In process of time they will have their little farms and lots of ground cleared, comfortable houses erected, mills built, and the more necessary arts of civilized life introduced among them. Great progress is alAdd to other untoward influences that ready making, and the time, I trust, will of the phraseology of the royal charters, come when the inhabitants of this Indian where what were called "rights" to cer- territory will accept the offer made by Contain lands were granted, without the slight-gress to the Cherokees, shortly after the est reference being made to the previous Revolution, to receive a delegation_from "rights" of the uncivilized occupants of them to the National Congress, and thus