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the neighbouring parts a tract of high land, called Noanantum. Agreeably to the advice of Mr. Eliot, who furnifhed them, by the public aid, with fhovels, fpades, mattocks, and iron crows, and ftimulated the most industrious with money, they foon built a fufficient humber of wigwams, not with mats as ufual, but with the bark of trees, and divided into feveral diftin apartments. The houfes of the meaneft were found to be equal to thofe of the fachems or chiefs in other places. They furrounded the town with ditches (fonie traces of which are ftill difcoverable at the fouthern extremity) and with a ftone wall. Some of the ftones compofing this encircling wall were removed within the memory of Mr. Abraham Hyde, who died A. D. 1794, Æt. 78, and who informed me, that he aided in removing them in very early life. At that time fome fruit trees were ftill ftanding towards the foot of Nonantum, on the fouth fide, which were reported to have been planted there by the Indians, in fome remote period of their refidence on that spot.

The Indians, thus fettled, were inftructed in hufbandry, and were excited to a prudent as well as induftrious management of their affairs. Some of them were taught fuch trades as were moft neceffary for them, fo that they completely built a houfe for public worship, fifty feet in length, and twenty-five feet in breadth, which, as an eye-witness, the Rev. Mr. Wilfon obferves, appeared like the workmanship of an English house"wright."

The Rev. Meff. Wilfon, of Boston; Allen, of Dedham, Shepard, of Cambridge, and Prefident Dunftar, of Harvard College, went over to Nonanturn, third of March, 1647, in company with feveral English, among whom probably was the great apoftle of the American Gentiles, Mr. Eliot. A fermon was delivered. Among the quef tions propofed at this time, one woman inquired, "Whe "ther the prayed, when the only joined with her huf "band in his prayer to God Almighty?" and another inquired, by the interpreter, "Whether her husband's

prayer fignified any thing, if he continued to be angry "with her, and to beat her?" Rational and chriftian. answers were given to their queftions. At this, and fome other meetings, the English gave away clothes to the Indian men, women, and children; fo that on a lec-i ture-day the greatest part of them appeared handsomely dreffed, after the English manner.

A particular account of these early and fuccefsful efforts to convert the heathens, was tranfmitted to England, and published there. One of the publications is ftiled, "Day-breaking, if not the Sun-rifing of the gof"pel with the Indians in New-England," and was printed in London, 1647. Another, written by the pious Mr. Shephard, of Cambridge, is ftiled, "The clear Sun-fhine of the gospel upon the Indians," and was published in London, 1648. I have fought, hitherto, in vain, for these publications, to which later writers owe their principal information on this interefting fubject, though I have been favoured with the aid of the Hiftorical Society of Maffachusetts in my fearch.

The women of Nonantum foon learnt to spin, and to collect articles for fale at the market through the year. In the winter, the Indians fold brooms, ftaves, baskets, made from the neighbouring woods and fwamps, and turkies raised by themselves; in the fpring, cranberries, ftrawberries, and fish from Charles river; in the fummer, whortleberries, grapes, and fifh. Several of them worked with the English in the vicinity, in hay-time and harvest; but they were neither fo induftrious nor capable of hard labour as thofe who have been inured to it from early life.

The fuccefs and fettlement of Nonantum, encouraged further attempts of Mr. Eliot to extend the knowledge of the gofpel to the aboriginals of other places. He, accordingly, vifited and preached to the Indians at Watertown, Dorchefter-mills, Concord, and as far as Pantucket Falls on Merrimac River. He alfo extended his truly apoftolical efforts to the natives of the colony of New-Plymouth, though their chief fachem and his fon

discountenanced his attempts. Thefe exertions laid a happy foundation for the chriftianizing and civilizing of five thousand out of twenty thousand Indians, belonging to the twenty different tribes then in New-England.

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The report of the happy attempts begun, and carried on in this place, and hence extending widely among the poor pagans of the American wildernefs, occafioned the parliament of Great-Britain, then under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, to pass an act, 27th of July, 1649, for the advancement of this good work. Whereas, fays the preamble of the act," the Commons of England, affembled in parliament, have received cer"tain intelligence from divers godly minifters and others " in New-England, that divers of the heathen natives, through the pious care of fome godly English, who preach the gospel to them in their own Indian lan"guage, not only of barbarous, have become civil, but "many of them forfake their accuftomed charms and "forceries, and other fatanical delufions, do now call "upon the name of the Lord, and give great teftimony "of the power of God, drawing them from death and "darkness to the life and light of the glorious gofpel of "Jefus Chrift; which appeareth by their lamenting, "with tears, their mifpent lives, teaching their children " what they are inftructed themfelves, being careful to place them in godly families, and the English schools, betaking themselves to one wife, putting away the "reft, and by their conftant prayers to Almighty God, "morning and evening, in their families, prayers ex

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preffed, in all appearance, with much devotion and "zeal of heart: All which confidered, we cannot but, "in behalf of the nation we reprefent, rejoice and give. glory to God for the beginning of fo glorious a propa"gation of the gospel among thofe poor heathen, which "cannot be profecuted with that expedition as is de"fired, unless fit inftruments be encouraged and main"tained to purfue it, fchools and clothing be provided, and many other neceffaries," &c. The act then

proceeds to establish a corporation of fixteen, including prefident or governor (which office, fome years after this date, was filled for a confiderable period by that great and devout philofopher, the Hon. Robert Boyle, who gave 300l. to the object), whofe duty was to fuperintend the bufinefs of dévoting the monies which should be given for chriftianizing, inftructing, clothing, and cia vilizing the Indians. A general collection was ordered to be made for thefe purposes through all the churches of England and Wales. The minifters were required to read this act in the churches, and to exhort the peo ple to a cheerful contribution to fo pious a work. Cir cular letters were publifhed, at the fame time, by the univerfities of Oxford and Cambridge, recommending the fame object. A fund, which, in Charles II's time, produced fix hundred pounds fterling per annum, was thus provided, the benefit of which has extended till the period of our independence and feparation from the mother country. Governor Hutchinson, who had the beft means of information, obferves, Perhaps no fund "of this nature has ever been more faithfully applied to the purposes for which it was raised.".

(To be continued.)

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Some Account of the Religious Exercises of David Hudson, written by himfelf.

I

WAS born of religious parents, and received an early education in the principles of religion, according to the Calvinistic Prefbyterian plan profeffed in the ftate. At a very early age I was taught the Affembly of Divines Catechifm, and made the Bible a great part of my reading. I was taught a very great reverence for divine revelation, and the ftrict obfervance of the Sabbath.

Unfortunately for me, when I was about nine years of age, my father embraced the fentiments of the Baptifts, and made a public profeffion of their principles

and worship. He then undertook to unlearn a part of the Catechifm, which relates to Baptifm, and taught his children, that although the Catechifm was true in the main, yet fome of the answers were utterly falfe. I had a brother of uncommon fagacity, about two years older than my felf. This conduct of my father gave fuch a fhock to our tender minds, that he never regained his authority over us in the belief of any religious fenti

ment.

Children naturally look up to their parents for in ftruction. Their belief, in early life, is hereditary; and it is an indifpenfible duty in parents to be firm and confiftent in their inftructions, and to do their duty with out wavering. From this period of time we began to be fceptical, and difpute upon the reasonablenefs of the eternity of punishment, and divine fovereignty, original fin, vicarious fufferings, &c.

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Our refpect and reverence for the Bible, Catechism, holy time and ordinances, gradually diminished till ano ther more fevere fhock affaulted us.

When I was about fifteen years of age, my father quitted his Anabaptift fentiments, and embraced Quakerifm; he was naturally dogmatical, and his being very confident in three different ways of thinking, na turally increased my fufpicions of the truth of all religion. I now felt a difpofition, if poffible, to difprove the truth of divine revelation; I thought the principle of felf-denial and mortifications unreasonable; and as pleasure was the natural pursuit of every human being, I viewed every abridgement as a kind of monaftic pe

nance.

At about the age of twenty-two years I read the Effays of Lord Kaimes, and was much pleafed to find any thing in his writings which operated against the Mofaic account of the creation of the world. Soon after this, I read Hume's Effays, and drank deep of the poison of that fubtle reafoner. I was peculiarly pleased with his Effay on Miracles, and from this date I was confirmed in infidelity. Hume took away all foundation, and left the belief of nothing.

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