Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/449

Rh zealous and kind-hearted of his own brethren, Eliot was careful to secure for every stage of his undertaking the sanction and patronage of the General Court, which he addressed in his petitions, and which he kept informed of his plans, hopes, and progress. It is noteworthy to read in the records of the Court its orders for selecting, bounding, and securing to the successive settlements of the Indians, for their ownership and improvements, portions of that wilderness territory of the whole of which, but a score of years before, they had been the unchallenged owners. From the date just named, onward, the entries on the Court records indicate that its legislation for the Indians alternated in measures of apprehension, caution, and restraint, with intended patronage and favors.

It was about the time of Eliot's most busy and anxious employment in planning his first Indian town, that there occurred an incident in his life at Roxbury which, however much or little significance it may have had for him, presents to us a suggestiveness and a charm that persuade us to linger for a moment upon it. The incident was a visit made to the Puritan Eliot by an honored and devoted Jesuit Father, who was laboring in the same cause, though in another way. Father Gabriel Druillettes, born in France in 1593, was sent as a missionary to New France, with two of his Jesuit brethren, in 1643. The horrid smoke of the Indian cabin, in his first winter with the Algonquins, deprived him, after intense suffering, of his sight, as he thought permanently, — the application of Indian remedies having destroyed his hope of restoration. Hundreds of leagues of lake, river, mountain, forest, and swamp kept him from all aid and sympathy from his brethren. He was led about by a child, and performed his offices and functions by memory and touch. His faithful neophytes proposed to draw him to Quebec on a sledge. He laughed at this proposal; and, instead, invited them to try the power of prayer. A votive Mass to the Virgin was