It was a mighty work for a man, now growing old, to take upon himself.
And what earthly reward could he expect from it? None; no reward on
earth. But he believed that the red men were the descendants of those
lost tribes of Israel of whom history has been able to tell us nothing
for thousands of years. He hoped that God had sent the English across
the ocean, Gentiles as they were, to enlighten this benighted portion of
his once chosen race. And when he should be summoned hence, he trusted
to meet blessed spirits in another world, whose bliss would have been
earned by his patient toil in translating the word of God. This hope and
trust were far dearer to him than anything that earth could offer.

Sometimes, while thus at work, he was visited by learned men, who
desired to know what literary undertaking Mr. Eliot had in hand. They,
like himself, had been bred in the studious cloisters of a university,
and were supposed to possess all the erudition which mankind has hoarded
up from age to age. Greek and Latin were as familiar to them as the bab-
ble of their childhood. Hebrew was like their mother tongue. They had
grown gray in study; their eyes were bleared with poring over print and
manuscript by the light of the midnight lamp.

And yet, how much had they left unlearned! Mr. Eliot would put into
their hands some of the pages which he had been writing; and behold! the
gray-headed men stammered over the long, strange words, like a little
child in his first attempts to read. Then would the apostle call to him
an Indian boy, one of his scholars, and show him the manuscript which
had so puzzled the learned Englishmen.

"Read this, my child," would he say; "these are some brethren of mine,
who would fain hear the sound of thy native tongue."