his accomplishment of the task which he had set himself! What if his hands
should be palsied? What if his mind should lose its vigor? What if death
should come upon him, ere the work were done? Then must the red man wander
in the dark wilderness of heathenism for ever.

Impelled by such thoughts as these, he sat writing in the great chair,
when the pleasant summer breeze came in through his open casement; and
also when the fire of forest logs sent up its blaze and smoke, through the
broad stone chimney, into the wintry air. Before the earliest bird sang,
in the morning, the apostle’s lamp was kindled; and, at midnight, his
weary head was not yet upon its pillow. And at length, leaning back in the
great chair, he could say to himself, with a holy triumph,—"The work is
finished!"

It was finished. Here was a Bible for the Indians. Those long lost
descendants of the ten tribes of Israel would now learn the history of
their forefathers. That grace, which the ancient Israelites had forfeited,
was offered anew to their children.

There is no impiety in believing that, when his long life was over, the
apostle of the Indians was welcomed to the celestial abodes by the
prophets of ancient days, and by those earliest apostles and evangelists,
who had drawn their inspiration from the immediate presence of the
Saviour. They first had preached truth and salvation to the world. And
Eliot, separated from them by many centuries, yet full of the same spirit,
had borne the like message to the new world of the West. Since the first
days of Christianity, there has been no man more worthy to be numbered in
the brotherhood of the apostles, than Eliot.