The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
many stones in a row, and pointing to me to tell them over.
I have told this passage, because it introduces what follows: that
after this discourse I had with him, I asked him how far it was from
our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost. He
told me there was no danger, no canoes ever lost: but that after a
little way out to sea, there was a current and wind, always one way in
the morning, the other in the afternoon. This I understood to be no
more than the sets of the tide, as going out or coming in; but I
afterwards understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux
of the mighty river Orinoco, in the mouth or gulf of which river, as I
found afterwards, our island lay; and that this land, which I perceived
to be W. and NW., was the great island Trinidad, on the north point of
the mouth of the river. I asked Friday a thousand questions about the
country, the inhabitants, the sea, the coast, and what nations were
near; he told me all he knew with the greatest openness imaginable. I
asked him the names of the several nations of his sort of people, but
could get no other name than Caribs; from whence I easily understood
that these were the Caribbees, which our maps place on the part of
America which reaches from the mouth of the river Orinoco to Guiana,
and onwards to St. Martha. He told me that up a great way beyond the
moon, that was beyond the setting of the moon, which must be west from
their country, there dwelt white bearded men, like me, and pointed to
my great whiskers, which I mentioned before; and that they had killed
much mans, that was his word: by all which I understood he meant the
Spaniards, whose cruelties in America had been spread over the whole
country, and were remembered by all the nations from father to son.
I inquired if he could tell me how I might go from this island, and get
among those white men. He told me, “Yes, yes, you may go in two canoe.”
I could not understand what he meant, or make him describe to me what
he meant by two canoe, till at last, with great difficulty, I found he
meant it must be in a large boat, as big as two canoes. This part of
Friday’s discourse I began to relish very well; and from this time I
entertained some hopes that, one time or other, I might find an
opportunity to make my escape from this place, and that this poor
savage might be a means to help me.
During the long time that Friday had now been with me, and that he
began to speak to me, and understand me, I was not wanting to lay a
foundation of religious knowledge in his mind; particularly I asked him
one time, who made him. The creature did not understand me at all, but
thought I had asked who was his father—but I took it up by another
handle, and asked him who made the sea, the ground we walked on, and
the hills and woods. He told me, “It was one Benamuckee, that lived
beyond all;” he could describe nothing of this great person, but that
he was very old, “much older,” he said, “than the sea or land, than the
moon or the stars.” I asked him then, if this old person had made all
things, why did not all things worship him? He looked very grave, and,
with a perfect look of innocence, said, “All things say O to him.” I
asked him if the people who die in his country went away anywhere? He
said, “Yes; they all went to Benamuckee.” Then I asked him whether
those they eat up went thither too. He said, “Yes.”
From these things, I began to instruct him in the knowledge of the true
God; I told him that the great Maker of all things lived up there,
pointing up towards heaven; that He governed the world by the same
power and providence by which He made it; that He was omnipotent, and
could do everything for us, give everything to us, take everything from
us; and thus, by degrees, I opened his eyes. He listened with great
attention, and received with pleasure the notion of Jesus Christ being
sent to redeem us; and of the manner of making our prayers to God, and
His being able to hear us, even in heaven. He told me one day, that if
our God could hear us, up beyond the sun, he must needs be a greater
God than their Benamuckee, who lived but a little way off, and yet
could not hear till they went up to the great mountains where he dwelt
to speak to them. I asked him if ever he went thither to speak to him.
He said, “No; they never went that were young men; none went thither
but the old men,” whom he called their Oowokakee; that is, as I made
him explain to me, their religious, or clergy; and that they went to
say O (so he called saying prayers), and then came back and told them
what Benamuckee said. By this I observed, that there is priestcraft
even among the most blinded, ignorant pagans in the world; and the
policy of making a secret of religion, in order to preserve the
veneration of the people to the clergy, not only to be found in the
Roman, but, perhaps, among all religions in the world, even among the
most brutish and barbarous savages.
I endeavoured to clear up this fraud to my man Friday; and told him
that the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to say O
to their god Benamuckee was a cheat; and their bringing word from
thence what he said was much more so; that if they met with any answer,
or spake with any one there, it must be with an evil spirit; and then I
entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the origin of
him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it,
his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped
instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he made use of to
delude mankind to their ruin; how he had a secret access to our
passions and to our affections, and to adapt his snares to our
inclinations, so as to cause us even to be our own tempters, and run
upon our destruction by our own choice.
I found it was not so easy to imprint right notions in his mind about
the devil as it was about the being of a God. Nature assisted all my
arguments to evidence to him even the necessity of a great First Cause,
an overruling, governing Power, a secret directing Providence, and of
the equity and justice of paying homage to Him that made us, and the
like; but there appeared nothing of this kind in the notion of an evil
spirit, of his origin, his being, his nature, and above all, of his
inclination to do evil, and to draw us in to do so too; and the poor
creature puzzled me once in such a manner, by a question merely natural
and innocent, that I scarce knew what to say to him. I had been talking
a great deal to him of the power of God, His omnipotence, His aversion
to sin, His being a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity; how, as
He had made us all, He could destroy us and all the world in a moment;
and he listened with great seriousness to me all the while. After this
I had been telling him how the devil was God’s enemy in the hearts of
men, and used all his malice and skill to defeat the good designs of
Providence, and to ruin the kingdom of Christ in the world, and the
like. “Well,” says Friday, “but you say God is so strong, so great; is
He not much strong, much might as the devil?” “Yes, yes,” says I,
“Friday; God is stronger than the devil—God is above the devil, and
therefore we pray to God to tread him down under our feet, and enable
us to resist his temptations and quench his fiery darts.” “But,” says
he again, “if God much stronger, much might as the wicked devil, why
God no kill the devil, so make him no more do wicked?” I was strangely
surprised at this question; and, after all, though I was now an old
man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill qualified for a casuist or a
solver of difficulties; and at first I could not tell what to say; so I
pretended not to hear him, and asked him what he said; but he was too
earnest for an answer to forget his question, so that he repeated it in
the very same broken words as above. By this time I had recovered
myself a little, and I said, “God will at last punish him severely; he
is reserved for the judgment, and is to be cast into the bottomless
pit, to dwell with everlasting fire.” This did not satisfy Friday; but
he returns upon me, repeating my words, “‘_Reserve at last!_’ me no
understand—but why not kill the devil now; not kill great ago?” “You
may as well ask me,” said I, “why God does not kill you or me, when we
do wicked things here that offend Him—we are preserved to repent and be
pardoned.” He mused some time on this. “Well, well,” says he, mighty
affectionately, “that well—so you, I, devil, all wicked, all preserve,
repent, God pardon all.” Here I was run down again by him to the last
degree; and it was a testimony to me, how the mere notions of nature,
though they will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of a God,
and of a worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as the
consequence of our nature, yet nothing but divine revelation can form
the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of redemption purchased for us; of a
Mediator of the new covenant, and of an Intercessor at the footstool of
God’s throne; I say, nothing but a revelation from Heaven can form
these in the soul; and that, therefore, the gospel of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the Word of God, and the Spirit of God,
promised for the guide and sanctifier of His people, are the absolutely
necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of
God and the means of salvation.
I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man,
rising up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; then
sending him for something a good way off, I seriously prayed to God
that He would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage;
assisting, by His Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature to
receive the light of the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to
Himself, and would guide me so to speak to him from the Word of God
that his conscience might be convinced, his eyes opened, and his soul
saved. When he came again to me, I entered into a long discourse with
him upon the subject of the redemption of man by the Saviour of the
world, and of the doctrine of the gospel preached from Heaven, viz. of
repentance towards God, and faith in our blessed Lord Jesus. I then
explained to him as well as I could why our blessed Redeemer took not
on Him the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham; and how, for that
reason, the fallen angels had no share in the redemption; that He came
only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the like.
I had, God knows, more sincerity than knowledge in all the methods I
took for this poor creature’s instruction, and must acknowledge, what I
believe all that act upon the same principle will find, that in laying
things open to him, I really informed and instructed myself in many
things that either I did not know or had not fully considered before,
but which occurred naturally to my mind upon searching into them, for
the information of this poor savage; and I had more affection in my
inquiry after things upon this occasion than ever I felt before: so
that, whether this poor wild wretch was better for me or no, I had
great reason to be thankful that ever he came to me; my grief sat
lighter upon me; my habitation grew comfortable to me beyond measure:
and when I reflected that in this solitary life which I have been
confined to, I had not only been moved to look up to heaven myself, and
to seek the Hand that had brought me here, but was now to be made an
instrument, under Providence, to save the life, and, for aught I knew,
the soul of a poor savage, and bring him to the true knowledge of
religion and of the Christian doctrine, that he might know Christ
Jesus, in whom is life eternal; I say, when I reflected upon all these