recovered from the blow. In the autumn of 1675 the Natick Indians were removed to Deer Island, 'patiently, humbly, and piously, without complaining against ye English,' says Eliot. In May 1678, when the exiles returned to Natick, one-fourth of all the natives in New England were considered to have been civilised, but their extinction was rapid after Eliot's death. One of his latest acts was to give by deed in 1689 seventy-five acres of land for the teaching of Indians and negroes in Roxbury. Down to 1733 all the town officers of Natick were Indians, who thirty years later were reduced to a single family. At the celebration in 1846 of the two hundredth anniversary of Eliot's first service one young girl was the sole surviving native representative.
'The Harmony of the Gospels' (1678) is a life of Jesus Christ with practical remarks. Eliot's tender solicitude for the natives was unbounded. For those taken prisoners in war he had the same active kindness as for his own converts. Writing to Boyle, 27 Nov. 1683, he requested him to use his influence to redeem some enslaved captives who had been carried to Tangiers (Life, p. ccx). He was visited by John Dunton [q. v.] in 1685, who states, 'He was pleased to receive me with abundance of respect' (Life and Errors, i. 115), and of the Indians, 'I have been an eye-witness of the wonderiful success which the gospel of peace has had amongst them' (ib. p. 121). Leusden dedicated his Hebrew English Psalter (1688) to Eliot. Mather, in giving Leusden at Utrecht, 12 July 1687, an account of Eliot's labours, describes him as formerly preaching once a fortnight, 'but now he is weakned with labours and old age, being in the 84th year of his age, and preacheth not to the Indians oftner than once in two months' (Magnalia, 1702, bk. iii. pp. 194-5). Elliot himself says to Boyle, 7 July 1688, 'I am drawing home' (Birch, p. ccxiii). The latest of his translations, that of Shepard's 'Sincere Convert,' was printed in 1689, and revised for the press by the Rev. Grindnll Rawson, an active missionary among the Indians. Eliot's lost words were 'Welcome joy.' He died at Roxbury 20 May 1690, aged 86, and was buried in the parish tomb in the old burying-ground. Monuments to his memory have been erected in the Forest Hills cemetery, Roxbury, in the Indian cemetery at South Natick, at Canton, Mass., and at Newton, near the site of his first Nonantum preaching. His 'dear, faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife,' as he called her, died three years before him. They had six children, a daughter and five sons, of whom one alone survived the parents (Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii. 109-10).
This was the Rev. Joseph Eliot, minister of Guilford, Conn., from 1664 to 1694, who graduated at Harvard in 1658, and whose son, Jared (1685-1763), is known as a theologian, physician, agriculturist, author, and friend or Franklin. Other American descendants of John Eliot are Fitzgreene Halleck, the poet (1790-1867), Professor Elisha Mitchell, geologist (1793-1857), Charles Wyllys Elliott, author (1817-1883), and Ethelinda Eliot Beers, poetess (1827-1879).
The authenticity of the portrait belonging to the Whiting family is doubtful. A good engraving from it is in the 'Century Magazine,' May 1883. A chair which belonged to Eliot is preserved in the First Church in Dorchester, Mass. A bureau considered to have been his is described in 'New England Hist. and Gen. Register,' October 1855 and January 1858. The position of his estate and house in Roxbury is pointed out by Drake (Town of Roxbury, 1878, pp. 174-5).
'Since the death of the apostle Paul,' proclaims Everett, 'a nobler, truer, and warmer spirit than John Eliot never lived ' (Address at Bloody Brook, in Orations, Boston, 1836, p. 614). This is no modern sentimental rhetoric. Eliot's contemporaries speak of him in enthusiastic terms. 'He that would write of Eliot,' says Mather, 'must write of charity or say nothing;' and Baxter, 'There was no man on earth whom I honour'd above him' (Magnalia, bk. iii. p. 210). He was the first to carry the gospel to the red man, and perhaps the earliest who championed the negro. Strangers with whom he came in contact spoke of the peculiar charm of his manners. He united fervent piety and love of learning to burning enthusiasm for evangelisation, these qualities being tempered with worldly wisdom and shrewd common sense. Taking into consideration the nature of his life, his literary activity is remarkable. No name in the early history of New England is more revered than his. Eliot was truly of a saintly type, without fanaticism, spiritual pride, or ambition.
The following is a list of the 'Indian tracts' already referred to. Most of them contain letters of Eliot, and some are wholly from his pen : 1. 'Good Newes from New England, by E[dward] W[inslow],' London, 1624, 4to. 2. 'New England's First Fruits,' London, 1643, 4to (anonymous). 3. 'The Day-breaking, if not the Sun-rising, of the Gospel with the Indians in New England,' London, 1647, 4to (erroneously ascribed to Eliot, says Francis, p. 346). 4. 'The Cleare Sun-shine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians in New England, by T. Shepard,' London, 1648, 4to (contains letter of Eliot;
