OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 217

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 to do it.

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 poor creature did not understand
me at all, but thought I had asked who was his father: but I took it
by another handle, and asked him, Who made the sea, the ground he
walked on, and the hills and woods? He told me it was one old Bena-
muckee, 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 the 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 said O! to him. I asked him if the people who die in his
country went away anywhere? He said, Yes, they all went to Bena-
muckee. 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 there,
pointing up towards heaven; that he governs the world by the same
power and providence by which he made it; that he was omnipotent,
could do every thing for us, give every thing to us, take every thing
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 him. IJasked 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 Oowookakee; that
is, as I made him explain it 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, is not only to be

found in the Roman, but perhaps among all religions in the world,

even among the most brutish and barbarous savages.

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