The first colonists hoped to have incorporated the Indians into their own commonwealth, and their charters provided for assignments of land to any such Indians as might become civilised. The pilgrims entertained the wish to Christianise the natives. “Alas!” said the good Robinson, when he heard of the first slaughter of the Indians, “that you had not converted some before you killed any!” Unfortunately, however, the Puritans, as we have said, regarding themselves as typified by the chosen Israelites, soon began to regard the natives as equally typified by the native tribes of Canaan; and a spirit of pride taking place of the former spirit of love, it was suggested “that the Indians might be, naturally as well as figuratively, the children of the devil,” and by degrees, they were treated as such with contempt and abhorrence. Before, however, this evil fruit loaded a once goodly tree, John Eliot, the minister of Roxbury, distinguished himself by his Christian labours among these children of the wilderness. Eliot began to preach to the Indians in 1646, when he was about forty years of age. “His benevolence,” says Bancroft, “almost amounted to genius. An Indian grammar was a pledge of his earnestness; the pledge was redeemed by his preparing and publishing a translation of the whole Bible into the Massachusetts dialect. His actions, his thoughts, his desires, all wore the hues of disinterested love. [Illustration: JOHN ELIOT PREACHING TO THE INDIANS.] “Eliot mixed with the Indians; he spoke to them of God, and of the soul, and explained the virtues of self-denial. He became their lawgiver. He taught the women to spin, the men to dig the ground. He established for them simple forms of government; and in spite of menaces from their priests and chieftains, he successfully imparted to them his own religious faith. Groups of Indians used to gather round him as a father; and now that their minds were awakened to reflection, often perplexed him with questions similar to those which have perplexed the profoundest intellects of the world, and which none are profound enough to solve, nor was the good missionary ever tired with the importunity of their inquiring minds.” The fame of Eliot’s pious and unremitting labours reached England, where a society was formed for aiding and supporting them. Funds by this means were sent over, which enabled him to educate his five sons at college, all of whom, with the exception of one, who died young, became preachers among the Indians; as well as to support various Indian youths at college, one of whom took a bachelor’s degree; and to allow small salaries to Indian preachers.