Another and very gratifying impression from the story thus far is the general fidelity of the Christian colonists in the work of the gospel among the heathen Indians. There was none of the colonies that did not make profession of a zealous purpose for the Christianizing of the savages; and it is only just to say, in the face of much unjust and evil talk, that there was none that did not give proof of its sincerity. In Virginia, the Puritans Whitaker and Thomas Dale; in Maryland, the earliest companies of Jesuit missionaries; Campanius among the Swedish Lutherans; Megapolensis among the Dutchmen, and the Jesuit martyr Jogues in the forests of New York; in New England, not only John Eliot and Roger Williams and the Mayhews, but many a village pastor like Fitch of Norwich and Pierson of Branford, were distinguished in the first generation by their devotion to this duty.[150:1] The succession of faithful missionaries has never failed from that day to this. The large expectations of the churches are indicated by the erection of one of the earliest buildings at Harvard College for the use of Indian students. At William and Mary College not less than seventy Indian students at one time are said to have been gathered for an advanced education. It was no fault of the colonial churches that these earnest and persistent efforts yielded small results. "We discover a strange uniformity of feature in the successive failures.... Always, just when the project seemed most hopeful, an indiscriminate massacre of missionaries and converts together swept the enterprise out of existence. The experience of all was the same."[151:1] * * * * * It will be a matter of growing interest, as we proceed, to trace the relation of the American church to negro slavery.