Chapter XXXIII: Stories of Two Ministers.
At first, Harvard College had only a very few students, who were to be educated for
the ministry. All the colonists contributed to the support of the institution, for
those who were too poor to give twelve pence in money were told to bring a measure of
corn or some firewood. Four years after the college was founded, the first English printing
press was set up there, and began to print books of psalms for the Puritan churches.
While the new college was training missionaries for the Indians, the latter had found
a good friend in John Eliot, who came over to America in 1631. While preaching in Boston
and Roxbury, Eliot learned the Massachusetts Indian language, and began to translate
the Bible into that tongue. It took him nearly thirty years of patient work to do this,
in the midst of all his preaching and teaching. But his Bible was the first printed in America, and many of his “praying Indians,” as the converts were called, learned to read in it.
Eliot was a sweet, simple, and very lovable man. He was so generous that once, in
paying him his salary, the parish treasurer tied it up in the good man’s handkerchief
with several knots, so that he should not be able to give it all away before reaching
home. But Eliot, unable to undo these hard knots when he met a poor woman, gave her
handkerchief and all, saying: “Here, my dear, take it; I believe the Lord designs it all for
you.”
After years of faithful work among the natives, Eliot, the “Apostle of the Indians,”
died, at the age of eighty-six. He tried harder than any other Puritan to convert the Indians,
who lost their best friend when he passed away. The Bible he worked so diligently
to translate still exists, but as there are no Massachusetts Indians left, it is now of no
use, except to remind us of Eliot’s great patience and perseverance.
As the soil was poor, hands few, and the harvests too scanty to supply food for all, the
colonists soon began to wonder how they could earn money. Before long, they discovered
that by sending fish to England, they could get all the food they wanted. For that reason
they fished diligently, and soon used a huge codfish as an emblem for the Massachusetts
Bay colony. Next, the colonists built a large ship called the Blessing of the Bay, in which
they sent lumber to the West Indies. In exchange for timber, they got sugar and molasses,
from which they made rum to ship to England. Thus commerce was begun, and, increasing
year by year, finally made the Massachusetts Puritans both rich and independent.
The Puritans, as you have seen, left England because they were not allowed to worship
there as they pleased. But although they did not like it when the English tried to
make them obey the Anglican Church, they now wanted to force all who came among
them to think just as they did.
One young man, Roger Williams, came to New England in 1631, and preached for a
while at Salem. But as he openly said that the Puritans had no right to punish people for
thinking differently about religious matters, or for such trifles as smoking on the street
or laughing too loud, he soon displeased some of the colonists.
They sent him away for a while, thinking he would change his mind; but when Williams
came back to Salem, he insisted harder than ever that every man had a right to think just as he pleased, to worship God as his conscience bade him, and to vote whether
he went to church or not. He also declared that the land around there belonged to the
Indians and not the king of England. These opinions seemed so wicked to the good Puritans
that they called him up before their Council to reprove him.
Finding that the Puritans would not let him live in peace in any part of the colony,
Williams secretly escaped from Massachusetts, and went to live among the Indians. As
he knew their language, and he
made friends with them, he spent
a very peaceful winter in their
camp.
When spring came, Williams
wanted to settle at Seekonk; but
as the Plymouth people claimed
that part of the land, he went farther
still, to a place which he
called Providence. Settling
there, in 1636, on land he bought
from the Indians, Williams was
soon joined by others who shared his opinions, and thus a colony was formed in what is
now Rhode Island, where all except Jews were allowed to vote. This was considered very
generous in those days, although it now seems unfair to exclude anyone on account of
religion.
Because Williams was so much broader-minded than many other people of his time,
he has often been called the “Apostle of Toleration”—a word which means letting others
alone, or allowing others to do as they please. People of every belief came to settle in
Williams’ neighborhood before long, and there was soon such a variety of them that it
was said if a man had lost his religion he would be sure to find it again in Rhode Island.
