picture of their dreams of the happy
hunting grounds in that invisible western world where the sun went
every night, and which they expected to see only after death.

The man who was reading the old story was John Eliot, an English
missionary, who had devoted his life to the Indians, and whose
ambition it was to leave behind him as his greatest gift the Bible
translated into their own tongue. With this in view he set about
making them familiar with the Christian faith, and established
Sunday-schools among them, where men, women, and children alike were
instructed.

From time to time they heard read stories from the New Testament which
Eliot had translated, and in which he was greatly helped by one or two
Indians who had gifts as translators, and could express the English
thought into Indian words more fitting and beautiful than Eliot
himself could have done. In all his earlier missionary work he also
had the assistance of the great sachem Waban, because, as it happened,
the first sermon Eliot ever preached to the Indians was delivered
in Waban's wigwam. The text was from the old poetic words of
Ezekiel--"Say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God," etc.

The Indian name for wind was Waban, the old sachem's name, and he
thought the sermon was addressed to him. He became an ardent convert
and helped Eliot greatly in his work of Christianizing the tribes,
and in particular in his trouble to keep peace among the sachems,
who objected to the freedom of thought which the new religion taught,
thinking that it interfered with their own authority over their
people.

In a little book in which Eliot describes these grievances of the
chiefs he calls them _Pills for the Sachems_, and says they were much
harder to swallow than even the nauseous doses of their medicine men.

For the better instruction of the Indian children Eliot prepared a
small primer, which was printed in 1669, eight years after the New
Testament was printed. It was a curious little book, having the
alphabet in large and small letters on the fly-leaf, and containing
the Apostles' Creed, the Catechism, and the Lord's Prayer, with other
religious matter. Out of this primer the Indian youth learned to read
and to spell in words of one syllable. When he was able to master the
whole Bible, which was printed in 1663, his education was considered
complete.

This old Indian Bible, which Eliot was ten years in translating, was
printed at Cambridge and bound in dark bl