stages of his exacting task Eliot was sure that his success was dependent upon the establishment of Indian communities in settlements exclusively their own, with fixed habits of life and industrious occupations, ultimately with school-teachers and dames, mechanics, preachers, and local magistrates of their own race, and with all the comforts and securities of the towns of the white men, and their organized churches. He wrote, “I find it absolutely necessary to carry on civility with religion.” The Rev. John Danforth, the poet divine of Dorchester, whom Eliot helped to put in office, commemorated the Apostle and his wife, “the virtuous consort,” in some verses after their decease. He thus puts into rhyme Eliot's matter-of-fact opinion on this subject: —
| “ | Address, I pray, your senate for good orders |
| To civilize the heathen in our borders. | |
| Virtue must turn into necessity, | |
| Or this brave work will in its urn still lie. | |
| Till agriculture and cohabitation | |
| Come under full restraint and regulation, | |
| Much you would do you'll find impracticable, | |
| And much you do will prove unprofitable. | |
| In common lands that lie unfenced, you know, | |
| The husbandman in vain doth plow and sow; | |
| We hope in vain the plant of grace will thrive | |
| In forests where civility can't live.” |
After many visits of search and exploration over a wide
circuit, with Indian companions for counsel and help, Eliot
chose a region of territory a part of which now bears its
original name, — Natick, — to begin his great experiment.
“The praying Indians” came to be the term, henceforward,
for designating those of the natives who had been
brought under degrees of instruction and of voluntary
submission to Christian influences. By the earnest and effective
agency of Eliot a large company of these were gathered
to the above named site in 1651, as a place for their permanent
settlement and abode, for further progress in civilization
and religion. Besides engaging in his behalf the most
