In her appropriate sphere she also exercised an important influence, indirectly, in carrying out her husband's plans. Amidst her devoted attentions to the care and nurture of her six children she found time for those many duties that devolved on a New England housekeeper of the olden time, when it was difficult and almost impossible to command the constant aid of domestics. To provide fitting apparel and food for her family, and to make this care justly comport with a small income, a free hospitality, and a large charity, required both efficiency and wisdom.
This she accomplished without hurry of spirit, fretfulness, or misgiving. But she had in view more than this: she aimed so to perform her own part as to leave the mind of her husband free for the cares of his sacred profession, and in this she was peculiarly successful. Her understanding of the science of domestic comfort, and her prudence—the fruit of a correct judgment—so increased by daily experience, that she needed not to lay her burdens upon him, or divert to domestic cares and employments the time and energy which he would fain devote to God. "The heart of her husband did safely trust in her," and his tender appreciation of her policy and its details was her sweet reward.
It was graceful and generous for the wife thus to guard, as far as in her lay, her husband's time and thoughts from interruption. For, in addition to his pastoral labors, in which he never spared himself, were his missionary toils among the heathen. His poor Indian people regarded him as their father. He strove to uplift them from the debasing habits of savage life.
Groping amid their dark wigwams, he kneeled by the rude bed of skins where the dying lay, and pointed the dim eye of the savage to the Star of Bethlehem. They wept in very love for him, and grasped his skirts as one who was to lead them to heaven. The meekness of his Master dwelt with him, and day after day he was a student of their uncouth articulations, until he could talk with the half-clad Indian children, and see their eyes brighten, for they understood what he said. Then he had no rest until the whole of the Book of God, that "Word" which has regenerated the world, was translated into their language.
Not less remarkable was the assistance lent by Mrs. Eliot to her husband's labors in her capacity as a medical assistant. The difficulty of commanding the attendance of well educated physicians, by the sparse population of the colony, rendered it almost indispensable that a mother should be not unskillful in properly treating those childish ailments which beset the first years of life. Mrs. Eliot's skill and experience as a doctress soon caused her to be sought for by the sick and suffering. Among the poor, with a large charity, she dispensed safe and salutary medicines. Friends and strangers sought her in their sicknesses, and from such as were able she received some small remuneration, often forced upon her, and used to eke out the slender income of her husband.
The poor Indians, too, were among her patients. Often they would come to her house in pain and suffering, and she would cheerfully give them medicine and advice, and dismiss them healed and rejoicing. The red man in his wigwam, tossing on his couch of anguish, was visited by this angel of mercy, who bound up the aching brow, and cooled the sore fever. Who can question that many souls were won to Christ by these deeds of practical charity.
In the light of such acts and such a life, we ascribe to Mrs. Eliot no small share in the success of those heroic labors by which five thousand "praying Indians" in New England were brought to bear testimony to the truths of the Bible and the power of revealed religion.
While woman's work in the Indian missions has been often indirect, in many other cases she has cooperated directly in efforts looking to the conversion of the red man. Prominent among the earlier pioneers in the missionary cause was Jemima Bingham. She came of a devout and God-fearing race, being a niece of Eleazur Wheelock, D. D., himself a successful laborer in the Indian missionary work, and was reared amid the religious privileges of her Connecticut home. There, in 1769, she married the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who had already commenced among the Oneida Indians those active and useful labors which only terminated with his life.
Entering with a sustained enthusiasm into the plans of her husband, she shortly after her marriage, accompanied him to his post of duty in the wilderness near Fort Stanwix—now Rome. This was literally on the frontier, in the midst of a dense forest which extended for hundreds of miles in every direction, and was the abode of numerous Indian tribes, some of which were hostile to the white settlers.
Their forest-home was near the "Council House" of the Oneidas—in the heart of the forest. There, surrounded by the dusky sons of the wilderness, the devoted couple, alone and unaided, commenced their joint missionary labors. The gentle manners and the indomitable courage and energy of Mr. Kirkland, were nobly supplemented by the admirable qualities of his wife. With the sweetness, gentleness, simplicity, and delicacy so becoming to woman under all circumstances, were blended in her character, energy that was unconquerable, courage that danger could not blench, and firmness that human power could not bend.