Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/469

Rh to a text on which Eliot had preached, or suggested by something he had said.

It was not until 1660 that a church of native members was instituted after the Puritan pattern at Natick. On the occasion, of which we do not know the date, Eliot officiated, baptized the candidates, and administered the Lord's Supper.

It would seem that the great accomplishment of Mr. Eliot's life, growing out of his missionary work, — the translation of the Scriptures entire, — so far from having entered into his original plans, had been regarded by him as impossible. In a letter to Winslow, in England, June 8, 1649, he wrote: —

This allusion to his responsibilities, as the head of a family, reminds us of the different conditions under which Eliot and a Jesuit labored in their respective fields. Eliot had a daughter and five sons. All these five sons he trained for Harvard College, dedicating them all to the Indian work. One of them died in his college course; the other four were preachers, one being his assistant at Roxbury. The daughter, with one only of the sons, survived the father. He writes: —