Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/444

424 and prepared for the ministry. From the first he was distinguished for his talent and proficiency in the study of languages. He became an assistant in the grammar-school of Mr. Hooker (afterwards of our Cambridge), at Little Baddow, in Essex. He came to Boston in November, 1631. Having pledged himself to become the minister of his fellow-voyagers if they should claim his services, he accepted the office over them in their settlement at Roxbury, as constituting the First Church there, Nov. 5, 1632; though he had to resist the urgent desire of the Church in Boston to become its pastor, in the absence of Wilson. He was soon married to a lady to whom he had been engaged in England, and who followed him hither. He retained his office in Roxbury till his death, May 20, 1690, at the age of eighty-six, — his faithful partner, Mrs. Ann Eliot, having gone before him, in her eighty-fourth year, March 24, 1687.

It would appear that Eliot had given heart and thought to a Christian service for the Indians in their instruction and civilization, immediately upon his settlement at Roxbury. As soon as the enterprise exhibited hopefulness, and through the efforts of Edward Winslow, at the time agent of the colony in London, had been brought to the notice and sympathy of friends in England, measures were taken, first privately and then by a parliamentary corporation, to draw to it patronage and funds. But it should always be mentioned to the honor of Eliot, that his sacred aim was self-prompted. Mayhew, of Martha's Vineyard, appears to have engaged simultaneously in the same effort, and in similar ways; but there had been no concert between the two. In fact, Eliot's first announcement of his purpose met with incredulity and opposition from some around him; and though he was afterwards greatly cheered and aided by sympathy and funds from the English society, his initiatory work and his hardest-won success preceded its organization, as well as the very moderate recognition of the