ngland and the
Middle States, but funds were insufficient, and it was foreseen that the
charity must inevitably outgrow its missionary purpose and if continued
at all must depend on a wider and more liberal patronage.

Samson Occum was born in Mohegan, New London Co., Ct., probably in the
year 1722. Converted from paganism in 1740 (possibly under the preaching
of Whitefield, who was in this country at that time) he desired to
become a missionary to his people, and entered Eleazer Wheelock's
school. After four years study, then a young man of twenty-two, he began
to teach and preach among the Montauk Indians, and in 1759 the
Presbytery of Suffolk Co., L.I., ordained him to the ministry. A
benevolent society in Scotland, hearing of, his ability and zeal, gave
him an appointment, under its auspices, among the Oneidas in 1761, where
he labored four years. The interests of the school at Lebanon, where he
had been educated, were dear to him, and he was tireless in its cause,
procuring pupils for it, and working eloquently as its advocate with
voice and pen. In 1765 he crossed the Atlantic to solicit funds for the
Indian school, and remained four years in England and Scotland,
lecturing in its behalf, and preaching nearly four hundred sermons. As a
result he raised ten thousand pounds. The donation was put in charge of
a Board of Trustees of which Lord Dartmouth was chairman. When it was
decided to remove the school from Lebanon, Ct., the efforts of Governor
Wentworth, of New Hampshire, secured its location at Hanover in that
state. It was christened after Lord Dartmouth--and the names of Occum,
Moore and Wheelock retired into the encyclopedias.

The Rev. Samson Occum died in 1779, while laboring among the Stockbridge
(N.Y.) Indians. Several hymns were written by this remarkable man, and
also "An Account of the Customs and Manners of the Montauks." The hymn,
"Awaked by Sinai's Awful Sound," set to the stentorian tune of "Ganges,"
was a tremendous sermon in itself to old-time congregations, and is
probably as indicative of the doctrines which converted its writer as of
the contemporary belief prominent in choir and pulpit.

Awaked by Sinai's awful sound,
My soul in bonds of guilt I found,
And knew not where to go,
Eternal truth did loud proclaim
"The sinner must be born again.
Or sink in endless woe."

When to the law I trembling fled,
It poured its curses on my head:
I no relief