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.”