tant causes. In 1656 the Court chose and commissioned Mr. Daniel Gookin to have the general oversight, as magistrate, of all the Indian towns. He sympathized warmly with the plans and labors of Eliot, was a man of great purity and nobleness of heart, of excellent judgment and exemplary patience, and became the most steadfast friend under severe discomfitures and trials of those who were committed to his charge. His office and work proved as exacting as those of Eliot.
The Society incorporated by the English Parliament for obtaining and administering funds for these gospel labors among the Indians drew to it many and very liberal friends. Its income came to amount to six or seven hundred pounds. The Commissioners of the United Colonies were, by provision of its charter, in relations of correspondence and advice with its officers, and were intrusted with the disbursing of its funds. Communications were sent over from Boston in a steady succession, reporting each stage of hopefulness and promise in the work, with full and minute information. These were indorsed by Presbyterian and Independent ministers in and near London, commended to the notice of the Puritan Parliament, and printed. Indifference, mistrust, and opposition to the cause as useless or overstated occasionally manifested themselves, but were met and silenced.[1]
The funds were to be used for various specified purposes, — salaries of ministers, interpreters, and school-teachers, the building of an Indian college at Cambridge and the support of native pupils and scholars, the purchase of clothing and books, etc. The Records of the Commissioners give evidence that there was some little friction in their agency
- ↑ The series of publications reporting the progress of Eliot's work, under titles indicative of the advance from dawn and daylight towards full noon, are, in their original issue, exceedingly rare, and are rated at extravagant values by bibliophilists. Most of them have been reprinted in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and they make together a unique class of literature.
