He knows that now I can do nothing for Him." Yet he was working for Him to the utmost of his power.

A little boy in the neighbourhood had fallen into the fire, and lost his eyesight in consequence.

The old minister took him into his house to instruct, and first taught him to repeat many chapters in the Bible, and to know it so thoroughly that when listening to readers he could correct them if they missed a word; after which he taught him Latin, so that an "ordinary piece" had become easy to him.
The importation of negro slaves had already begun, and Mr.Eliot "lamented with a bleeding and a burning passion that the English used their negroes but as their horses or oxen, and that so little care was taken about their immortal souls.

He look'd upon it as a prodigy, that any bearing the name of Christians should so much have the heart of devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the instruction of the poor Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable slaves to a destroying ignorance, merely through fear of using the benefit of their vassalage." So, old as he was, he induced the settlers around to send him their negroes on certain days of the week for instruction; but he had not made much progress in the work before he became too feeble to carry it on.

He fell into languishments attended with fever, and this he viewed as his summons.