Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

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well as a natural birth, but oft-times great dignities, preferments, honours, promo-
tions are clogs and hindrances to the soul . . . wherefore, then, should any
labour more for greatness than goodness, preferring favour of men before the favour
of God, liigh places on earth before the high places in heaven ? . . ."
At the same time that he ministered to his own parish, he preached
for several years to the neighboring Indian tribe of the Niantics, having a
commission as missionary to them from the Commissioners for Propagating
the Gospel in New England and Parts Adjacent in America. A
record of services under this commission, kept by him from 1 744 to 1 746
shows that in those years he gathered Indians together, for rehgious
instruction, as often as from two to five times monthly, usually in numbers
from twenty to forty. In this connection a vote of the Commissioners,
in 1757, is somewhat significant, that, considering it " likely the Indians of
Nihantic might be brought more generally to attend the Rev. Mr. Gris-
wold's lectures, in case they we^^e less freq^ient, the said Mr. Griswold be
informed that the Commissioners would have him, for the future, to
preach a lecture to them only once a fortnight, instead of doing it weekly
as at present." Doubtless an assembly of Indians might try the powers of
any preacher, and Mr. Griswold was, at this time, no longer young. If he
had not the pathos of a David Brainerd, whose deeply compassionate
appeals to the dusky children of the forest at Stockbridge were often
answered by tears, yet his ministry must have been more than ordinarily
useful ; as is testified by the following contemporaneous obituary :*
"Lyme in Con'., 19 Oct. 1761.
" On Wednesday last died the Rev* Mr. George Griswold, of y° 2^ Society in
Lyme, after more than Seven Weeks Painful Illness, in y"* 70*'' year of his age, and
in y'^ 37"" Year of his Ministry.
We copy what seems to be the original draft. Its chirograph)', compared with that of Rev. Jona-
than Parsons of Lj'rae, leads us to conjecture that he was the author of it. He was a near neighbor and
ministerial associate of Rev. George Griswold for fourteen years, and his nephew by marriage ;
and
the
two were in close theological sympathy with each other. Although Parsons had ceased to reside in
Lyme after 1745, family-ties must have brought him there often, as long as he lived.
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