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!”

It was finished.  Here was a Bible for the Indians.  Those long lost descendants of the ten tribes of Israel would now learn the history of their forefathers.  That grace, which the ancient Israelites had forfeited, was offered anew to their children.

There is no impiety in believing that, when his long life was over, the apostle of the Indians was welcomed to the celestial abodes by the prophets of ancient days, and by those earliest apostles and evangelists, who had drawn their inspiration from the immediate presence of the Saviour.  They first had preached truth and salvation to the world.  And Eliot, separated from them by many centuries, yet full of the same spirit, had borne the like message to the new world of the West.  Since the first days of Christianity, there has been no man more worthy to be numbered in the brotherhood of the apostles, than Eliot.

“My heart is not satisfied to think,” observed Laurence, “that Mr. Eliot’s labors have done no good, except to a few Indians of his own time.  Doubtless, he would not have regretted his toil, if it were the means of saving but a single soul.  But it is a grievous thing to me, that he should have toiled so hard to translate the Bible, and now the language and the people are gone!  The Indian Bible itself is almost the only relic of both.”

“Laurence,” said his Grandfather, “if ever you should doubt that man is capable of disinterested zeal for his brother’s good, then remember how the apostle Eliot toiled.  And if you should feel your own self-interest pressing upon your heart too closely, then think of Eliot’s Indian Bible.  It is good for the world that such a man has lived, and left this emblem of his life.”