OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 493°

hands, vested with a reasonable soul, and that soul adorned with facul-
ties and capacities adapted both to honour his Maker and be honoured
by him,—TI say, to see it sunk and degenerated to a degree so more
than stupid, as to prostrate itself to a frightful nothing, a mere ima- —
ginary object dressed up by themselves, and made terrible to themselves
by their own contrivance, adorned only with clouts and rags,—and that
this should be the effect of mere ignorance, wrought up into hellish
devotion by the devil himself, who, envying his Maker the homage and
adoration of his creatures, had deluded them into such gross, surfeit-.
ing, sordid, and brutish things, as one oud think should shock note ’
itself.

But what signified all the astonishment and reflection of thoughes # x
Thus it was, and I saw it before my eyes; and there was no room to
wonder at it, or think it impossible. All my admiration turned to
rage; and I rode up to the image or monster, call it what you will,
and with my sword cut the bonnet that was on its head in two in the
middle, so that it hung down by one of the horns; and one of our
men that was with me, took hold of the sheep-skin that covered it,
and pulled at it, when, behold, a most hideous outcry and howling
ran through the village, and two or three hundred people came about
my ears, so that I was glad to scour for it; for we saw some had bows
and arrows; but I resolved from that moment to visit them again.

Our caravan rested three nights at the town, which was about four
miles off, in order to provide some horses, which they wanted, several
of the horses having been lamed and jaded with the badness of the
way, and our long march over the last desert; so we had some leisure
here to put my design in execution. I communicated my project to
the Scots merchant, of Moscow, of whose courage I had had a suffi-
cient testimony, as above. I told him what I had seen, and with what
indignation I had since thought that human nature could be so dege-
nerate. I told him I was resolved, if I could get but four or five men
well armed to go with me, to go and destroy that vile, abominable idol;
to let them see, that it had no power to help itself, and consequently
could not be an object of worship, or to be prayed to, much less help
them that offered sacrifices to -it.

He laughed at me; said he, ‘‘ Your zeal may be good; but what do
you propose to yourself by it?’—‘ Propose!” said I; “to vindicate
the honour of God, which is insulted by this devil worship.”

“But how will it vindicate the honour of God,’ said he, “while the
people will not be able to know what you mean by it, unless you could
speak to them too, and tell them so? and then they sill fight you too,
I will assure you, for they are desperate fellows, and that especially in