HAVING Seep Dr. Eliot's and Mr. Allen's Biographical Dictionaries, and found that they left unnoticed the life and character of the Rev. Oliver Peabody; I presumed the omission originated in a deficiency of materials, and not from any design in those gentlemen to neglect the memory of so pious and worthy a man: and being possessed of documents, which have not been brought to public view, veneration for our ancestors, and justice to the memory of so faithful and laborious a servant of our common Lord, call upon me to contribute what I can to arrest his name from oblivion.

The Rev. Oliver Peabody was born of reputable parents in

This article is furnished by a worthy minister of the Gospel, who has had the best means of informa tion with respect to the subject of

his Memoirs.

Ed. Pan.

Mr. Peabody requested his friends not to give him any public character at his decease; but it is presumed, that to notice him respectfully now would not be a violation of his dying request; especially as a brief display of his excellent example may serve to encourage others to persevere in the way of well doing.

VOL. IV. New Series.

Boxford, in the county of Essex, and state of Massachusetts, in the year 1698. At the age of two years he was bereaved of his father, and the care of his early education devolved on his pious mother, who was not inattentive to the importance of her charge. The youth was early made sensible that religion was the one thing needful, and that it was of the highest consideration, as to the present peace and future felicity of man. It was no minor object with him, to know in what way he might best glorify God and become useful to his fellow men. The deep interest he felt in the cause of the Redeemer, led him to seek an education that would best prepare him for future usefulness; and accordingly he entered Harvard College in 1717, and was graduated in 1721, in the twenty-third year of his age. As he was designed for the ministry, he was intent on his future profession, while pursuing his collegiate studies; and the im provement he made in various branches of literature evince, that he possessed an expansive mind, and a disposition to appre ciate his advantages.

Immediately after he was graduated, the committee of the Board of Commissioners, requested him to be ordained as an evangelist, and to carry the news of salvation to the heathen. They informed him that they had made application to a considerable number of candidates, and had been very unsuccessful, and that, if he failed, they must, for the present, relinquish the object.*

Upon hearing from the committee the difficulty of obtaining missionaries, he did not hesitate, whether he should undertake the arduous task. His piety, and the lively interest he felt in the salvation of the heathen, conspired to point out to him the path of duty, and taught him that the will of his heavenly Father ought, in the first place, to be regarded; and that no prospect of present indulgence, or temporary advantage, should be permitted to draw him from his purpose. Sensible that such were the goodness

* The writer of this Memoir has been informed by several respectable persons, who had repeatedly heard it from Mr. Peabody, that the Commissioners told him he was the twelfth candidate to whom they made application. The reason why so many were unwilling to engage as missionaries, was the apprehen. sion of an Indian war. The French were active in stimulating the Indians to commence hostilities with

the English; and for this purpose, furnished them with provisions and warlike implements. Besides, it will be remembered, that the English had much to fear from the artful and persevering influence of Sebastian Rolle, a French Jesuit, who contributed, not a little, to inflame the passions of the savages, and to excite them to commit outrages on the English settlements.

and wisdom of his heavenly Benefactor, that obedience to his will would infallibly prove the way of safety and happiness; animated with zeal in the cause of his Master, and with the prospect of doing good to the souls of the benighted inhabitants of the wilderness, the young. servant of the Lord conquers the reluctance of nature, banishes fear from his breast, suppresses every passion and thought that would prompt to disobey the call of Providence, readily resigns himself to the Divine direction, and resolves to follow the cloud wherever it should direct his goings. In this he resembled Abraham, who, when he was called to go out into a place, which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and went out, not knowing whither he went.*

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As the honorable Board of Commissioners concluded send him to Natick, a place that lies in the vicinity of the Society, which employed him, a place that was surrounded with regular settled ministers, they did not immediately ordain him, but sent him to perform missionary service, till circumstances should render his ordination expedient.

On the 6th day of August, 1721, he preached there for the first time. At that period there were but two families of white people in the town, though several other families soon afterwards removed thither. There

* When Mr. Peabody engaged to enter on a mission, he was subject to the will of his employers, and knew not the place of his destination; but expected to be sent to a remote distance into the wilderness.

knowledge, service, and enjoyment of God. For this purpose, he endeavored to give them a deep impression of their sinful and undone state by nature, and to point out to them what they must be by grace in order to be prepared for the heavenly felicity. He endeavored to set before them the true character of God; the apostasy of man; the atonement made by the Divine Redeemer; their need of the convincing, enlightening, and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, to transform them into the moral image of God; justification by faith in the blood of a crucified Savior; and the various duties which they owed to God, as their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, to mankind in general, and to their own souls. Often would he direct their attention to the closing scene of their lives, to the resurrection of the dead, to a future judgment, and to the interesting and solemn realities of eternity. He was sensible that the knowledge of God without the knowledge of human guilt and misery, is but the nurse of pride; and that the knowledge of human guilt and misery, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, is but the mother of despair. He, therefore, attempted to give at once, not only a view of the character and perfections of God, and of the apostasy of man; but also of the mercy and goodness of God, manifested in the condescension, suffering, atonement, and offices of Christ.

He embraced the religious principles of our Puritanic fathers, and has left us abundant testimony in his publications and

manuscripts, that he had not so learned Christ, as to make the precepts of the Gospel bend to suit the vices of men. He was bold and zealous in the cause of truth; but his zeal was not that of the enthusiast. It was an ardent desire to promote the glory of God, and the best good of his fellow men. It was a fixed, uniform, benevolent affection, which was not satisfied with moderate attempts to do good, in so important a cause as that of the Redeemer. When he reflected. that the heathen had yielded up no inconsiderable part of their country to accommodate the poor pilgrims from the old world; and that an intercourse with Europeans had introduced new diseases and new vices, which had created new miseries, and greatly diminished the numbers of the natives; he considered it as the highest ingratitude, not to endeavor, by all possible means, to meliorate their condition, and especially to impart to them the knowledge of salvation by a crucified Savior.

Their proximity to the white inhabitants had given them free access to spirituous liquors, a circumstance which served greatly to increase the labors, and augment the difficulties of a minister among them. This mischief was not easily removed; but exertions were made to check its progress, and lessen its disastrous effects. Guardians were placed over the Indians, and the sad consequences of intemperance set before them; not only as being an ungrateful abuse of God's bounty, and divesting man of his native dignity; but as exposing him to in

not

numerable calamities and dangers, and more especially to the wrath of an incensed God. Mr. Peabody's exertions to lessen this growing evil, were made in vain. Many of the natives became less intemperate, and if their evil habits were not eradicated, the vice of intemperance became less common. The consequence was, the Indians became more peaceable, less revengeful, more industrious, and more attentive to religious order. The Spirit of the Lord seemed to send home to their consciences the truths of the Gospel. The hearts of a number were opened to the reception of the truth; and the devout servant of the Lord had reason to think that he had not labored in vain. Twenty-two persons were added to the church the first year after his ordination, a number of whom were Indians. In a letter to the convention of ministers, who were assembled at Boston, from the New England Provinces, on the 7th of July, 1743, to express their gratitude to God for the revival of religion in this part of the Lord's vineyard, he observes, "Among my little people (I would mention it to the glory of the rich grace, and of the blessed Spirit of God,) there have been very apparent strivings and operations of the Holy Ghost among Indians and English, young and old, male and female. There have been added to our church, of such as I hope shall be saved, about fifty persons of different nations, since the beginning of last March was two years, whose lives in general witness to the sincerity of their profession."

. During the ministry of Mr. Peabody, which was little more than twenty-two years from his ordination to his decease, one hundred and sixty Indians, and four hundred white persons, were baptized in his small society; besides twenty-nine Indians, and twenty-two English people, previously to his ordination. The number admitted into his church after his ordination, as appears from the church records, was one hundred and sixty-five persons; of whom thirty-five were Indians, and one hundred and thirty were white persons. It is not now known, that more than one person of the above number survives. It further appears, from the record of the deaths, that while he was in Natick, a period of thirty-one years and a half, two hundred and fifty-six Indians died; one of whom arrived to one hundred and ten years.

As a minister, Mr. Peabody was faithful and laborious. He accounted the work of the ministry an honorable employment, and by his unwearied diligence, and exemplary life, he honored it. From his first entrance upon the sacred office, he made it the business of his life to improve in the qualifications for it. He studied to show himself approved unto God, workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. He considered it to be the great design of preaching to give men a realizing view of their guilt and danger, to show them wherein their true and substantial happiness consists, and to point out to them the method in which it might be obtained. It was not to him a trifling con