He that will write of Eliot must write of charity, or say nothing. His
charity was a star of the first magnitude in the bright constellation
of his vertues, and the rays of it were wonderfully various and
extensive. His liberality to pious uses, whether publick or private,
went much beyond the proportions of his little estate in the world.
Many hundreds of pounds did he freely bestow upon the poor; and he
would, with a very forcible importunity, press his neighbors to join
with him in such beneficences. It was a marvelous alacrity with which
he imbraced all opportunities of relieving any that were miserable;
and the good people of Roxbury doubtless cannot remember (but the
righteous God will!) how often, and with what ardors, with what
arguments, he became a beggar to them for collections in their
assemblies, to support such needy objects as had fallen under his
observation. The poor counted him their father, and repaired still
unto him with a filial confidence in their necessities; and they were
more than seven or eight, or indeed than so many scores, who received
their portions of his bounty. Like that worthy and famous English
general, he could not perswade himself "that he had anything but what
he gave away," but he drove a mighty trade at such exercises as he
thought would furnish him with bills of exchange, which he hoped
"after many days" to find the comfort of; and yet, after all, he would
say, like one of the most charitable souls that ever lived in the
world, "that looking over his accounts he could nowhere find the God
of heaven charged a debtor there." He did not put off his charity to
be put in his last will, as many who therein shew that their charity
is against their will; but he was his own administrator; he made his
own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers. It has been
remarked that liberal men are often long-lived men; so do they after
many days find the bread with which they have been willing to keep
other men alive. The great age of our Eliot was but agreeable to this
remark; and when his age had unfitted him for almost all employments,
and bereaved him of those gifts and parts which once he had been
accomplished with, being asked, "How he did?" he would sometimes
answer, "Alas, I have lost everything; my understanding leaves me, my
memory fails me, my utterance fails me; but, I thank God, my charity
holds out still; I find that rather grows than fails!" And I make no
question, that at his death his happy soul was received and welcomed
into the "everlasting habitations," by many scores got thither before
him, of such as his charity had been liberal unto.
[Footnote 13: From the "Magnalia Christi Americana." This work
comprizes an ecclesiastical history of early New England, and has been
in much favor with collectors. John Eliot has commonly been called
"The Apostle of the Indians." He labored among them many years and
translated into their language the Bible. Copies of the "Eliot Bible"
are now among the most valuable of early American books.]
But besides these more substantial expressions of his charity, he made
the odors of that grace yet more fragrant unto all that were about
him, by that pitifulness and that peaceableness which rendered him yet
further amiable. If any of his neighborhood were in distress, he was
like a "brother born for their adversity," he would visit them, and
comfort them with a most fraternal sympathy; yea, 'tis not easy to
recount how many whole days of prayer and fasting he has got his
neighbors to keep with him, on the behalf of those whose calamities he
found himself touched withal. It was an extreme satisfaction to him
that his wife had attained unto a considerable skill in physick and
chirurgery, which enabled her to dispense many safe, good and useful
medicines unto the poor that had occasion for them; and some hundreds
of sick and weak and maimed people owed praises to God for the benefit
which therein they freely received of her. The good gentleman her
husband would still be casting oil into the flame of that charity,
wherein she was of her own accord abundantly forward thus to be doing
of good unto all; and he would urge her to be serviceable unto the
worst enemies that he had in the world. Never had any man fewer
enemies than he! but once having delivered something in his ministry
which displeased one of his hearers, the man did passionately abuse
him for it, and this both with speeches and with writings that
reviled him. Yet it happening not long after that this man gave
himself a very dangerous wound, Mr. Eliot immediately sends his wife
to cure him; who did accordingly. When the man was well, he came to
thank her, but she took no rewards; and this good man made him stay
and eat with him, taking no notice of all the calumnies with which he
had loaded him; but by this carriage he mollified and conquered the
stomach of his reviler.
He was also a great enemy to all contention, and would ring aloud
courfeu bell wherever he saw the fires of animosity. When he heard any
ministers complain that such and such in their flocks were too
difficult for them, the strain of his answer still was, "Brother,
compass them!" and "Brother, learn the meaning of those three little
words, bear, forbear, forgive." Yea, his inclinations for peace,
indeed, sometimes almost made him to sacrifice right itself. When
there was laid before an assembly of ministers a bundle of papers
which contained certain matters of difference and contention between
some people which our Eliot thought should rather unite, with an
amnesty upon all their former quarrels, he (with some imitation of
what Constantine did upon the like occasion) hastily threw the papers
into the fire before them all, and, with a zeal for peace as hot as
that fire, said immediately, "Brethren, wonder not at what I have
done; I did it on my knees this morning before I came among you." Such
an excess (if it were one) flowed from his charitable inclinations to
be found among those peace-makers which, by following the example of
that Man who is our peace, come to be called "the children of God."
Very worthily might he be called an Irenaeus as being all for peace;
and the commendation which Epiphanius gives unto the ancient of that
name, did belong unto our Eliot; he was "a most blessed and a most
holy man." He disliked all sorts of bravery; but yet with an ingenious
note upon the Greek word in Col. iii. 15, he propounded, "that peace
might brave it among us." In short, wherever he came, it was like
another old John, with solemn and earnest persuasives to love; and
when he could say little else he would give that charge, "My children,
love one another!"
Finally, 'twas his charity which disposed him to continual
applications for, and benedictions on those that he met withal; he had
an heart full of good wishes and a mouth full of kind blessings for
them. And he often made his expressions very wittily agreeable to the
circumstances which he saw the persons in. Sometimes when he came into
a family, he would call for all the young people in it, that so he
might very distinctly lay his holy hands upon every one of them, and
bespeak the mercies of heaven for them all.