r at the
house of the elder Campanius, and he did much to teach and
Christianize them. "He generally succeeded in making them understand
that there is one Lord God, self-existent and one in three Persons;
how the same God made the world, and made man, from whom all other men
have descended; how Adam afterward disobeyed, sinned against his
Creator, and involved all his descendants in condemnation; how God
sent his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ into the world, who was born
of the Virgin Mary and suffered for the saving of men; how he died
upon the cross, and was raised again the third day; and, lastly, how,
after forty days, he ascended into heaven, whence he will return at a
future day to judge the living and the dead," etc. And so much
interest did they take in these instructions, and seemed so well
disposed to embrace Christianity, that Campanius was induced to study
and master their language, that he might the more effectually teach
them the religion of Christ. He also translated into the Indian
language the Catechism of Luther, perhaps the very first book ever put
into the Indian tongue.

Campanius began his work of evangelizing these wild people four years
before Eliot, who is sometimes called "the morning star of missionary
enterprise," but who first commenced his labors in New England only in
1646. Hence Dr. Clay remarks that "the Swedes may claim the honor of
having been the first missionaries among the Indians, at least in
Pennsylvania."[36] "It was, _in fact, the Swedes who inaugurated the
peaceful policy of William Penn_. This was not an accidental
circumstance in the Swedish policy, but was deliberately adopted and
always carefully observed."[37]

When Mr. Rising became governor of the Swedish colony he invited ten
Indian chiefs, or kings, to a friendly conference with him. It was
held at Tinicum, on the Delaware, June 17, 1654, when the governor
saluted them, in the name of the Swedish queen, with assurances of
every kindness toward them, and proposed to them a firm renewal of the
old friendship. Campanius has given a minute account of this
conference, and recites the speech in which one of the chiefs, named
Naaman, testified how good the Swedes had been to them; that the
Swedes and Indians had been in the time of Governor Printz as one body
and one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like the
calabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without a
crack; and that in case of da