True Stories From History and Biography by Nathaniel Hawthorne Read Free Book Online

work, he was visited by learned men, who desired
to know what literary undertaking Mr. Elliot had in hand. They, like
himself, had been bred in the studious cloisters of a university, and were
supposed to possess all the erudition which mankind has hoarded up from
age to age. Greek and Latin were as familiar to them as the babble of
their childhood. Hebrew was like their mother tongue. They had grown gray
in study; their eyes were bleared with poring over print and manuscript by
the light of the midnight lamp.
    And yet, how much had they left unlearned! Mr. Eliot would put into their
hands some of the pages, which he had been writing; and behold! the
gray-headed men stammered over the long, strange words, like a little
child in his first attempts to read. Then would the apostle call to him an
Indian boy, one of his scholars, and show him the manuscript, which had so
puzzled the learned Englishmen.
    "Read this, my child," said he, "these are some brethren of mine, who
would fain hear the sound of thy native tongue."
    Then would the Indian boy cast his eyes over the mysterious page, and read
it so skilfully, that it sounded like wild music. It seemed as if the
forest leaves were singing in the ears of his auditors, and as if the roar
of distant streams were poured through the young Indian's voice. Such were
the sounds amid which the language of the red man had been formed; and
they were still heard to echo in it.
    The lesson being over, Mr. Eliot would give the Indian boy an apple or a
cake, and bid him leap forth into the open air, which his free nature
loved. The apostle was kind to children, and even shared in their sports,
sometimes. And when his visitors had bidden him farewell, the good man
turned patiently to his toil again.
    No other Englishman had ever understood the Indian character so well, nor
possessed so great an influence over the New England tribes, as the
apostle did. His advice and assistance must often have been valuable to
his countrymen, in their transactions with the Indians. Occasionally,
perhaps, the governor and some of the counsellors came to visit Mr. Eliot.
Perchance they were seeking some method to circumvent the forest people.
They inquired, it may be, how they could obtain possession of such and
such a tract of their rich land. Or they talked of making the Indians
their servants, as if God had destined them for perpetual bondage to the
more powerful white man.
    Perhaps, too, some warlike captain, dressed in his buff-coat, with a
corslet beneath it, accompanied the governor and counsellors. Laying his
hand upon his sword hilt, he would declare, that the only method of
dealing with the red men was to meet them with the sword drawn, and the
musket presented.
    But the apostle resisted both the craft of the politician, and the
fierceness of the warrior.
    "Treat these sons of the forest as men and brethren," he would say, "and
let us endeavor to make them Christians. Their forefathers were of that
chosen race, whom God delivered from Egyptian bondage. Perchance he has
destined us to deliver the children from the more cruel bondage of
ignorance and idolatry. Chiefly for this end, it may be, we were directed
across the ocean."
    When these other visitors were gone, Mr. Eliot bent himself again over the
half written page. He dared hardly relax a moment from his toil. He felt
that, in the book which he was translating, there was a deep human, as
well as heavenly wisdom, which would of itself suffice to civilize and
refine the savage tribes. Let the Bible be diffused among them, and all
earthly good would follow. But how slight a consideration was this, when
he reflected that the eternal welfare of a whole race of men depended upon
his accomplishment of the task which he had set himself! What if his hands
should be palsied? What if his mind should lose its vigor? What if death
should come upon him, ere the work were done? Then must the red man wander
in the dark wilderness of heathenism for ever.
    Impelled by