Apostle to the Indians

As you recall, the first Bible published in America was the work of John Eliot, who translated the Bible into the Massachusett language of the Algonquian language family. It's important to go back and tell the story of John Eliot, the "apostle to the Indians."

Eliot was born in 1604 in England. As a young man, he went off to Jesus College at the University of Cambridge, from which Thomas Cranmer had recently graduated. While there, he came to know Thomas Hooker, and he worked with Hooker as an assistant. In the late 1620s and early 1630s, there was increased pressure on those of a Puritan mind-set in England. As a result, Hooker left England and went to Holland. Eliot also left, boarding a ship on November 3, 1631, bound for the New World. He actually served as a chaplain on that ship.

When he arrived in the New World, he was installed as a minister in Roxbury, Mass. He participated in the trial of Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy. He was involved in a number of publishing efforts. He was one of those Puritan ministers who was involved in the printing of the Bay Psalm Book, which was the first book printed in the American Colonies.

He began to be convicted of the need to preach the gospel to the Native Americans, and so he poured great effort into Native American missions. In 1646, he preached his first sermon to the Indians. He worked for the next several years on learning the language and trying to translate portions of Scriptures. He translated the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments and numerous texts from the Gospels and other sermons. And then, in the late 1650s and 1660s, he turned his energies towards translating the Bible into the Massachusett language. In 1663, one thousand copies of his Bible came off the printing press.

In 1670, he wrote A Brief Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel, an account of the missionary work among the Indians. The Puritans called the Indians who converted to Christianity "praying Indians." And when they would gather together and form a church, they would call these places "praying towns." Eliot planted fourteen of these praying towns. He wrote of the gospel's progress among the Indians, "Also the teacher of the praying Indians of Nantucket with a brother of his were received who made good confessions of Jesus Christ, and being asked did make report unto us that there be about ninety families who pray unto God on that island, so effectually is the light of the gospel among them." Eliot saw this effectual light of the gospel again and again across these towns in Massachusetts.

At one point, he was challenged as to why he did not have English pastors at these churches and why he was so bent on having Indians as the teaching elders and ruling elders of these churches. He said it was because of the difficulties English ministers would experience. For one, it was hard for the Native Americans to support them financially. It was also difficult because of the language barrier. Eliot set about teaching the teachers of the Indians. In his book, he wrote, "And while I live my purpose is by the grace of Christ assisting to make it one of my chief cares and labors to teach teachers."