Pioneers and Founders | Page 7

saw the fires of animosity." When he heard any ministers complain that such and such in their flocks were too difficult for them, the strain of his answer was still: "Brother, compass them;" and, "Brother, learn the meaning of those three little words, 'bear, forbear, forgive.'"
Once, when at an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers containing matters of difference and contention between two parties--who, he thought, should rather unite--was laid on the table, Eliot rose up and put the whole upon the fire, saying, "Brethren, wonder not at that which I have done: I did it on my knees this morning before I came among you."
But that "exquisite charity" seems a little one-sided in another anecdote recorded of him, when "a godly gentleman of Charlestown, one Mr. Foster, with his son, was taken captive by his Turkish enemies." {f:6} Public prayers were offered for his release: but when tidings were received that the "Bloody Prince" who had enslaved him had resolved that no captive should be liberated in his own lifetime, and the distressed friends concluded, "Our hope is lost;" Mr. Eliot, "in some of his prayers before a very solemn congregation, very broadly begged, 'Heavenly Father, work for the redemption of Thy poor servant Foster, and if the prince which detains him will not, as they say, release him so long as himself lives, Lord, we pray Thee kill that cruel prince, kill him, and glorify Thyself upon him.' And now behold the answer. The poor captiv'd gentleman quickly returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man, and brings us news that the prince, which had hitherto held him, was come to an untimely death, by which means he was now set at liberty."
"And to turn their hearts" was a form that did not occur to the earnest suppliant for his friend. But the "cruel prince" was far away out of sight, and there was no lack of charity in John Eliot's heart for the heathen who came into immediate contact with him. Indeed, he was the first to make any real effort for their conversion.
The colonists were as yet only a scanty sprinkling in easy reach of the coast, and had done little at present to destroy the hunting-grounds of the Red man who had hitherto held possession of the woods and plains.
The country was inhabited by the Pequot Indians, a tall, well-proportioned, and active tribe, belonging to the great Iroquois nation. They set up their wigwams of bark, around which their squaws cultivated the rapidly growing crop of maize while the men hunted the buffalo and deer, and returning with their spoil, required every imaginable service from their heavily-oppressed women, while they themselves deemed the slightest exertion, except in war and hunting, beneath their dignity. Their nature had much that was high and noble; and in those days had not yet been ruined either by the White man's vices or his cruelty. They were neither the outcast savages nor the abject inferiors that two hundred years have rendered their descendants, but far better realized the description in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," of the magnificently grave, imperturbably patient savage, the slave of his word, and hospitable to the most scrupulous extent. It was in mercy and tenderness that the character was the most deficient. The whole European instinct of forbearance and respect to woman was utterly wanting,--the squaws were the most degraded of slaves; and to the captive the most barbarous cruelty was shown. Experience has shown that there is something in the nature of the Red Indian which makes him very slow of being able to endure civilization, renders wandering almost a necessity to his constitution, and generally makes him, when under restraint, even under the most favourable conditions, dwindle away, lose all his fine natural endowments, and become an abject and often a vicious being. The misfortune has been that, with a few honourable exceptions, it has not been within the power of the better and more thoughtful portion of man to change the Red Indian's vague belief in his "Great Spirit" to a more systematic and stringent acceptance of other eternal verities and their consequent obligations, and at the same time leave him free to lead the roving life of the patriarchs of old; since, as Scripture itself shows us, it takes many generations to train the wandering hunter to a tiller of the soil, or a dweller in cities; and the shock to the wild man of a sudden change is almost always fatal both to mental and bodily health. This conclusion, however, has been a matter of slow and sad experience, often confused by the wretched effects of the vice, barbarity, and avarice of the settler and seaman, which in many cases have counteracted the effects of the missionary,