As to the Indians, the natives of the country, they are a decaying people^ We have not now in all the parish twenty families, whereas not many years ago there were several hundreds. I have frequently conversed with some of them, and been at their great meetings of " pawawing," as they call it. 1 have taken some pains to teach some of them, but to no purpose, for they seem regardless of instruction, and when I have told them of the evil consequences of their hard drinking, &c., they replied that Englishmen do the same, and

» Hawkins' Hist. Not. of CoL Church, j). 279.

60 HISTORY OF THE

that it is not so great a sin in an Indian as in an Englishman, because the Englisliman's religion forbids it, but an Indian's does not. They further say they will not be Christians, nor do they see the necessity for so being, because we do not live according to the precepts of our holy religion. In such ways do most of the Indians that I have conversed with, either here or elsewhere, express themselves. I am heartily sorry that we should give them such a bad example, and fill their mouths with such objections to our blessed religion."

"He mentions in this letter that they had completed the house of God at Rye, by the subscription of the inhabitants ; a stately structure indeed."

'* Mr. Muirson, after a short but a most useful service in the ministry of the church, died in October, 1708, much lamented by his friends, and missed by his parishioners."^