ning
distinguished success, and were about to take their degree, when Joel,
who had gone home on a visit, was wrecked on the Island of Nantucket,
and, with the rest of the ship's company, was either drowned or murdered
by the Indians. The name of Caleb, Chee-shah-teau-muck, Indus, is still
to be seen in the registers of those who took their degree, and there are
two Latin and Greek elegies remaining, which he composed on the death of
an eminent minister, bearing his signature, with the addition, Senior
Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim
themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth
Mohican word! Caleb's constitution proved unable to endure College
discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his
degree. Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often
is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems
to have mown down especially the more intellectual of the Indians;
Monequassum, the first schoolmaster at Natick, among them. An Indian
College, which had been established at Cambridge, failed from the deaths
of some scholars and the discouragement of others, and had to be turned
into a printing house, and the energetic and indefatigable Eliot did the
best he could by giving courses of lectures in logic and theology to
candidates for the ministry at Natick, and even printed an "Indian logick
primer." It was a wonderful feat, considering the loose unwieldy words
of the language.

From 1660 to 1675 were Eliot's years of chief success. His own vigour
was unabated, and he had Major Gookin's hearty co-operation. There had
been time for a race of his own pupils to grow up; and there had not been
time for the first love of his converts to wax cool. There had been a
long interval of average peace and goodwill between English and natives,
and there seemed good reason to suppose that Christianity and
civilization would keep them friends, if not fuse them together. There
were eleven hundred Christian Indians, according to Eliot and Gookin's
computation, with six regularly constituted "churches" after the fashion
of Natick, and fourteen towns, of which seven were called old and seven
new, where praying Indians lived, for the most part, in a well-conducted,
peaceable manner, though now and then disorderly conduct would take
place, chiefly from drunkenness. Several Sachems had likewise been
converted, in especial Wan