Page images
PDF
EPUB

ANNELIOT.

Ir was a peculiar blessing of the Reverend JOHN ELIOT, styled in the early history of New-England, the 'Apostle of the Indians,' to have had, during the self-denial and hardship of his lot, for so many years, the solace of a most careful, loving, and pious wife, who found in her home duties her highest happiness.

ANN MOUNTFORT, born in England in 1604, was the cherished object of his young affections. They were affianced ere he left his native land, in 1631, at the age of twenty-seven, to bear the message of the gospel to what was then called the western wilderness.' It was deemed prudent by their relatives that the marriage should not take place until he had gone over, and decided on some permanent abode, and made such preparation for her arrival as circumstances might allow.

The blasts of November were bleak and searching, when, after long tossing upon the deep, he landed, with his small band of colonists, upon the shores of Massachusetts. After officiating a short time in Boston, he decided on a settlement in Roxbury, and sent to hasten his betrothed to his home and to his heart. Under the care of friends, who were to emigrate to that region, Ann Mountfort bade a life's farewell to the scenes of her infancy and those who had nurtured it, and committed herself to a boisterous ocean. The comforts that modern science has invented for the traveller on the trackless deep were then unknown. No noble steamer, with its lofty deck and luxurious state-rooms, appeared with the promise of speed and safety, and with a power to make winds and waves subservient to its will.

Only a frail, rocking bark was there, which the billows seemed to Wearisome days and nights, and many of them, were appointed to those who adventured their lives in such a craft. But the affianced bride shrank not. Often, amid storms, 'mounting up to the heavens, and going down to the depths,' and long, by the dreary prospect of seas and skies, and by the loathing heart-sickness which neither pen nor tongue hath described, was the complexion of her love and the fabric of her faith tested; and both triumphed.

At length, the New World stretched as a thin cloud to their view. More tardy than ever seemed the movements of the way-worn vessel. Hovering upon the coast, the autumnal brilliance of American forests and thickets, the crimson, the orange, and the umbered brown, blending, receding, and contrasting, beneath the bright rays of an October sun, struck the daughter of the dimmer skies of England as a gorgeous dream of Fairy-land.

The joy of the patriarch, who, going forth to 'meditate at the eventide,' saw the arching necks of the camels that bore to his mother's tent the daughter of Bethuel, surpassed not his, who, after long watching, and vainly questioning the sullen billows, at length descried the white sail that heralded his lone heart's treasure. And the maiden remembered no more the sorrow of the sea, in the welcome of the lover, who was all the world to her.

John Eliot and Ann Mountfort were married immediately after her arrival, and commenced their housekeeping in what was then called Roxborough, about a mile from Boston. Simple, almost to rudeness, were the best accommodations that the pastor had it in his power to offer; but the young wife was satisfied, for the home that her presence illumined was a paradise to her husband.

Scarcely more than ten years had elapsed since the colonists at Plymouth first set foot upon the snow-clad rocks, tenanted only by wild beasts and savages. Though visible progress had been made during that period in the accession of household comforts, yet many of those luxuries which we are accustomed to count as necessaries were unattainable. Carpets, sofas, the sheltering curtains, and the burnished grates of the mother-land, with their never-dying coal fires, were unknown. Yet the unadorned apartment and homely board were beautiful to them; for love was there, a love whose entireness was perfected and made permanent by having its root in the love of a SAVIOUR.

In the autumn of the following year, 1633, their first-born, a fair daughter, smiled upon them, waking a fountain of unimagined joy, and making their hearts more at home in the stranger-land. The cradle of rude boards rocked on a still ruder floor. But the lullaby of the young mother gushed out with as rich melody as in any baronial hall; and doubly sweet in the wilderness were the hallowed, half-inspired words of Watts:

'HUSH, my dear! lie still and slumber!

Holy angels guard thy bed.'

In addition to this new treasure, the next twelve years gathered around Ann Eliot five little sons. Her watchful tenderness for the physical and spiritual welfare of her intrusted flock, never slumbered. Nothing was neglected that maternal zeal or diligence could devise or perform. She was careful to nourish them on plain and wholesome food, believing that the indulgence of luxurious or inordinate appetites lay a foundation not only for bodily ills, but moral infirmity. Obedience, the key-stone of education in primitive times, was so early taught as to mingle with the first developments of character; and industrious employment, suited to difference of age, judiciously mingled with the sports of childhood. Their young minds clinging around her, their teacher, with a loving tenacity, as they put forth new tendrils, or leaves like those of the lilac, fragrant ere they unfolded, gave accessions to her happiness, for which she daily praised God.

Sometimes, the wintry winds, swaying the branches of the naked trees, swept them against their lowly roof with a melancholy sound. The apostle might be absent among his Indian flock, at Natick, fifteen miles distant, for the elements stayed him not. Then nearer and nearer to herself she gathered her nurslings, 'a nest of five brothers, with a sister in it,' teaching and cheering them. In the hushes of her loved voice, or in the pauses of the storm, they listened for the father's footstep, and piled higher the fire of logs with blazing brush-wood, that, as the evening deepened, his own window might gleam out to him as a blessed star.

Ever solicitous, like the mother, for their instruction in the things that accompany salvation, he studied to render the morning and evening

family devotion not a monotonous task to them, but a season of interested attention. Order and quietness were, of course, established among them, and then, from the portion of Scripture that preceded the prayer, each child was permitted to select such passage or expression as most pleased or impressed its mind; no matter whether it were but a line, or even a single word. They were encouraged to make a remark upon it, to ask a question about it, to speak of it throughout the day. It was their own 'goodly pearl' that they had found by the still waters. It was their own little seed of knowledge that they had chosen for themselves. In the heart of the parent was a prayer that GOD would suffer it to grow and bring forth fruit unto eternal life. No matter how broken or infantine the phrase in which the young thought, thus born of the Inspired Book, might clothe itself, no fear obstructed its utterance, for there was no critic to frown. There was the revered father, bending his ear to listen; the earnest eye of the mother, ready to beam approval. Under this regimen, it was wonderful how soon the youngest bud lifted up its tiny dew-drop.

Mrs. Eliot, amidst her devotedness to the care and nurture of her six children, found time for those many duties that devolved on a New-England house-keeper of the olden time, when it was difficult and almost impossible to command the constant aid of domestics. To provide fitting apparel and food for her family, and to make this care justly comport with a small income, a free hospitality, and a large charity, required both efficiency and wisdom. This she accomplished without hurry of spirit, fretfulness, or misgiving. But she had in view more than this: so to perform her own part, as to leave the mind of her husband free for the cares of his sacred profession. This she also performed. Her understanding of the science of domestic comfort, and her prudence, the fruit of a correct judgment, so increased by daily experience, that she needed not to lay her burdens upon him, or to drain the strength with which he would fain serve at the altar. The heart of her husband did safely trust in her,' and his tender appreciation of her policy and its details was her sweet reward.

It was graceful and generous in the good wife thus to guard, as far as in her lay, his time and thoughts from interruptions. For, in addition to his pastoral labors, in which he never spared himself, were his missiontoils among the heathen. His poor, red-browed people counted him their father. He strove to uplift them from the habitudes of savage life. Groping amid their dark wigwams, he kneeled by the bed of skins where the dying lay, and pointed the dim eye to the star of Bethlehem. They wept in very love for him, and grasped his skirts as one who was to lead them to heaven. The meekness of his MASTER dwelt with him, and day after day he was a student of their uncouth articulations, until he could talk with the half-clad Indian child, and see its eye brighten. Then he had no rest until the whole of the Book of GOD, that 'light to lighten the Gentiles,' was transfused into their language. It is a well-known fact, that the first volume which ever proceeded from the New-England press was the Aboriginal Bible of the Apostle Eliot. All its pages were written with a single pen, consecrated by prayer to that peculiar work. Sacred pen! Ought it not to have been preserved, like 'Aaron's rod that budded, with the tables of the covenant.'

No wonder that Ann Eliot should have deemed it a service of piety to shield such a husband from the perplexity and lowering tendency of secular cares. Not only did she succeed in rendering a small salary equivalent to all the needs, proprieties, and charities of their position, but also managed to lay aside something for a future day, when sickness or age should quell the energies of action. Singularly regardless was the apostolic man of all such worldly wisdom. The bread of to-morrow never occupied his thoughts. Perhaps even that of the passing day might not have entered there, save that it formed a petition of the prayer that JESUS taught his disciples. He said that the sons of Levi should not seek their heritage below, and that the 'earth was no fit place on which to lay Aaron's holy mitre.'

An historian of these times, in describing how little his peaceful mind occupied itself with the science of accumulation, says, 'Once, when there stood several of his own kine before his door, his wife, to try him, asked, 'Whose kine are these?' and she found he knew nothing about them.'

Among the multitude of employments which a systematic division of time enabled her to discharge, without omission or confusion, was a practical knowledge of medicine, which made her the guardian of the health of her young family. The difficulty of commanding the attendance of well-educated physicians, by the sparse population of an infant colony, rendered it desirable, and almost indispensable, that a mother should be neither unskilled nor fearful amid the foes that so thickly beset the first years of life. The success of Mrs. Eliot in the rearing and treatment of her own children, caused her experience to be coveted by others. In her cheerful gift of advice and aid, she perceived a field of usefulness opening around her, especially among the poor, to whom, with a large charity, she dispensed safe and salutary medicines. But her philanthropy was not to be thus limited to the children of penury. Friends and strangers sought her in their sicknesses, and she earnestly availed herself of the best medical works that she could obtain, to increase her knowledge, and her confidence in its application. To her well-balanced mind and large benevolence, it seemed both proper and pleasant, that while the beloved companion of her life devoted his energies and prayers to the welfare of the soul, she should labor for the health of the body. Often they found themselves side by side at the couch of suffering, and a double blessing from those ready to perish came upon them.

To the pastor himself, this sphere of benevolence, where his wife so willingly wrought, was a source of intense satisfaction, and he tenderly encouraged her both in the study and exercise of the healing art. He exulted in her success, as far as his heaven-wrapt spirit could exult in any thing of earth. Deeply delighted and grateful was he when, on one prominent occasion, her skilful and ready service enabled them effectually to discharge the difficult Christian duty of rendering good for evil. Notwithstanding the meekness and self-denial of his course, he was not always exempt from the shafts of calumny. A man of a proud and lawless temper took offense at a sermon of his, and repaid his 'simplicity and godly sincerity' with hatred and persecution. His passionate abuse extended to both tongue and pen. After a considerable period of time, he sustained a dangerous accident, and Mrs. Eliot, whose fortitude did not

shrink from surgical cases, undertook the dressing of his wounds. Her services were gladly accepted, and eventually successful. After his recovery, he called to render thanks in person. The forgiving pastor took him by the hand, and, as it was meal-time, led him to his table. In the grace that preceded the repast, he gave thanks that the sick was restored. She, who had so faithfully labored for his healing, was in her seat at the table, to dispense her free hospitality with the smile of welcome. No allusion was made to the past; but were there not writhings of remorse in the heart of the traducer? The warmth of these coals from the Christian altar melted enmity into love, and the man who had been so openly injurious ever afterward took pains to prove that he 'to whom much is forgiven, loveth much.'

It might naturally have been expected that a woman so high-principled as Mrs. Eliot, so firm in duty, so fervent in holy trust, would be also exemplary in the endurance of affliction. Though she considered her lot as a favored one, never having accounted toil or privation as evils, she had her share in that cup which He who drank it to the dregs usually appoints his disciples to taste.

Her six carefully-nurtured children all attained a vigorous maturity, save the youngest but one. He was a fine boy of twelve, earnest both in books and sports, and pressing with joyful expectation on the verge of active life. Suddenly, at its threshold, he faltered and fell. 'God touched him, and he slept.'

Four other sons remained. Each in succession received the benefits of a collegiate education, and all cheered the hearts of their parents by decidedly and seriously choosing the work of the ministry.

Samuel, who was two years older than his brother whom the tomb had so early claimed, was lovely both in person and in mind. He was a graduate of Harvard at nineteen, and eminent in his youthful bloom, both for learning and goodness. In love with knowledge, he lingered a while as a fellow of the university, ere he should assume the crook of the sacred shepherd, and lead souls beside living waters. The wing of the dark angel overshadowed him, as he mused among the pages of wisdom, and communed with the spirits of other times. His bright eye grew dim to earth. He went to read in the Book of Heaven.

The first-born son bore the name of the father, and inherited his gentle temperament. He was refined by a love of classic lore and the attainment of many accomplishments. The warmth and force of his pulpit eloquence were proudly appreciated by the people at Newton, among whom he was settled; and his zealous piety moved him to give instruction to the roving natives, having mustered the aboriginal language. His parsonage was made pleasant by the young bride whom he had brought there, and mingling with the song of birds was a new music; the voice of a babe, stirring the parents' hearts with strange gladness. But a few months had passed over the head of the boy, the third John Eliot, ere the father lay in his coffin. In the strength and fulness of his prime, having scarcely numbered his thirty-second year, he was removed from a loving flock and cherished home.

'He grew so fast,' says the author of the 'Magnalia Christi Americana,' 'that he was soon ripe for heaven, and upon his death-bed uttered such

« PreviousContinue »