Darley was the most accomplished and prolific American illustrator before the centennial, supplying thousands of drawings for engravings published in novels, books of poetry, and historical works by the principal authors of his time. The work for which he made this fine wash drawing of the Puritan cleric John Eliot has not been identified. Eliot, imbued with the mission to convert the Algonquin Indians to Christianity, translated the Bible and other religious texts into their language, Massachuset, in which he became fluent. Here, in a seemingly deliberate attempt to evoke the figure of John the Baptist from traditional Christian iconography, Darley represented Eliot wearing Indian breeches, standing nearly at the apex of a conical arrangement of figures in a wilderness setting. The artist shrewdly contrasted the aura of sunlight silhouetting the divine with the deep forest shade cloaking his rapt yet resistant audience.