Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission fieldYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission field
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Missionaries
When Governor Endicot shortly after visited the place, he was greatly
struck with the orderliness and civilization he found there. "I account
this one of the best journeys I have made for many years," he says. Many
little manufactures were carried on, in particular one of drums, which
were used for lack of bells in some of the American settlements, as a
summons to come to church.
There was a native schoolmaster, named Monequassum, who could write,
read, and spell English correctly, and under whom the children were
making good progress. Promising lads were trained by Mr. Eliot himself,
in hopes of making them act as missionaries among their brethren. All
this time his praying Indians were not baptized, nor what he called
"gathered into a Church estate." He seems to have been determined to
have full proof of their stability before he so accepted them; for it was
from no inclination to Baptist views that he so long delayed receiving
them. However, on the 13th of October, 1652, he convened his brother-
ministers to hear his Indians make public confession of their faith. What
the converts said was perfectly satisfactory; but they were a long-winded
race, accustomed to flowing periods; and as each man spoke for himself,
and his confession had to be copied down in writing, Mr. Eliot himself
owns that their "enlargement of spirit" did make "the work longsome." So
longsome it was, that while the schoolmaster was speaking every one got
restless, and there was a confusion; and the ministers, who had a long
dark ride through the woods before them, went away, and were hard to
bring back again, so that he had to finish hearing the declarations of
faith alone.
Still, he cut off the baptism and organization of a church till he had
sent all these confessions to be considered by the Society in England,
printed and published under the title of "Tears of Repentance," with a
dedication to Oliver Cromwell. Then came other delays; some from the
jealousy and distrust of the English, who feared that the Indians were
going to ally themselves to the Dutch; some from the difficulty of
getting pastors to join in the tedious task of listening to the wordy
confessions; and some from the distressing scandal of drunkenness
breaking out among the Indians, in spite of the strict discipline that
always punished it. It was not till 1660 that Mr. Eliot baptized any
Indians, and the next day admitted them to the Lord's Supper, nine years
after he had begun to preach. The numbers we do not know, but there is
no doubt that he received no adults except well proved and tried persons
coming up to the Puritan standard of sincerity and devotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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