have carried on through the length of a lifetime so successfully as did he two distinctly different courses of service. His ministry in Roxbury was never neglected because he was Apostle to the Indians. His church, like his colony, was well ordered. And of his services to the education of American youth we have today an enduring monument in the Roxbury Latin School which he founded.

Mr. Eliot's wife, as has been said, was a woman of many virtues, distinguished alike for gentle piety and cheerful usefulness. Their life together was a long and very happy one, and when, March 24, 1687, she died at the age of eighty-four, her loss smote heavily on the heart of her venerable husband. She who had been bound to him by the strong ties of early love, who had been his solace amidst the arduous toil of his mission, and the soul-sick

ening delays of his translation, had fallen by his side, and he had no wish to live longer. One who was present at Mrs. Eliot's funeral tells us that the Apostle stood with tears fast flowing over the coffin of her whom he had so long loved, and to the concourse of people there gathered said, sadly: "Here lies my dear, faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife; I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.'

None the less, Mr. Eliot continued to preach as long as his strength lasted. With slow and feeble steps he ascended the hill on which his church was situated, a hill which is still rather trying to climb. The last sermon which he delivered was a clear and edifying exposition of the eightythird psalm, and the date of this October 17, 1688. He died May 20, 1690, aged

eighty-six years, painfully whispering, "Welcome joy!"

To the last the Indians were his chief interest. Among his farewell speeches is recorded this: "There is a cloud, a dark cloud, upon the work of the gospel among the poor Indians. The Lord revive and prosper that work, and grant it may live when I am dead. It is a work which I have been doing much and long about."

John Eliot lies interred in the Eustis Street Burying-Ground, about ten minutes' walk from the church over which he so efficiently and faithfully ministered. His Bible can be found only here and there in a museum or library. But his story is among the best-known because one of the sweetest of all the romantic tales in our country's history. And Nonantum and Natick will ever be names of beautiful moral meaning in the chronicles of New England.

PARSON SMITH'S DAUGHTER

T

ABIGAIL

HE life of Abigail Adams emphasizes very impressively the truth

that in early New England the clergy and their families represented the gentry of the period. Abigail's father was all his life a poor minister. Called from his parish in Charlestown to take charge in August, 1734, of the First Church at Weymouth, his salary at the new parish was only £160 a year, in addition to which the parish munificently settled upon him later the sum of £300,

the latter to be paid £100 annually for three years, all in bills of credit." But if

there was not a large income, there was a great deal of solid learning and quiet culture in the little Weymouth home where was born, November 11, 1744, the beautiful and intelligent girl who was to become the wife of one President of the United States, and the mother of another.

As a young girl Abigail Smith did not enjoy great advantages. Had her health been better she might have availed herself of such limited educational opportunities as were open to girls of her day, but, delicate as she was, her parents thought it best not to send her away to school. In a letter written in 1817, the year before her death, she says, speaking of her own deficiencies: "My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunities which the present days offer, and which even our common country schools now afford. I never was sent to any school.