A RED INDIAN BOOK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 877, 22 January 1930, Page 6

A RED INDIAN BOOK

Exeter Cathedral has discovered in its library one of the rarest books In the world. It was written for the Massachusetts Red Indians, and it is long since the last man to speak their language passed to the Happy Hunting Grounds. John Eliot was one of those men whose religious beliefs led them to leave England in tlie 17th century. He had been born in green Hertfordshire in 1604, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, but he left these beloved places to be an American colonist. Soon he became the champion of the Red Indians, eager to help, teach, and protect them. In time he became famous as the Indian Apostle. His great -work was the translation of the Bible into a. North American language. It was finished in 1663, and was the first version printed on the American continent. The copy at Exeter has lain unrecognised and neglected for years, but the other day an American visited the cathedral library and recognised it. Now the priceless book is displayed beside the Devonshire Domesday Book and the Saxon Manuscript of the : poems of Cynewulf. The Cinderella 1 of the cathedral library has taken its i place with Exeter’s two greatest treas- t ures. ;