142 THE STIRRINGS OF CONSCIENCE.

It is true, when I got onshore first here, and found all my ship’s
crew drowned, and myself spared, I was surprised with a kind of
ecstasy and some transports of soul, which, had the grace of God
assisted, might have come up to true thankfulness. But it ended
where it began, in a mere common flight of joy, or, as I may say,
being glad I was alive, without the least reflection upon the distin-
guishing goodness of the hand which had preserved me, and had
singled me out to be preserved, when all the rest were destroyed ;
or an inquiry why Providence had been thus merciful to me—even
just the same common sort of joy which seamen generally have
after they have got safe ashore from a shipwreck, which they drown
all in the next bowl of punch, and forget almost as soon as it is
over, and all the rest of my life was like it.

Even when I was afterwards, on due consideration, made sen-
sible of my condition, how I was cast on this dreadful place, out
of the reach of human-kind, out of all hope of relief or prospect of
redemption, as soon as I saw but a prospect of living, and that I
should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense of my afflic-
tion wore off, and I began to be very easy, applied myself to the
works proper for my preservation and supply, and was far enough
from being afflicted at my condition, as a judgment from heaven,
or as the hand of God against me. These were thoughts which
very seldom entered into my head.

The growing up, of the corn, as is hinted in my journal, had at
first some little influence upon me, and began to affect me with
seriousness, as long as I thought it had something miraculous
in it; but as soon as ever that part of the thought was removed,
all the impression which was raised from it wore off also, as I have
noted already.

Even the earthquake, though nothing could be more terrible in
its nature, or more immediately directing to the Invisible Power
which alone directs such things, yet no sooner was the first fright
over, but the impression it had made went off also. I had no
more sense of God or his judgments, much less of the present
affliction of my circumstances being from his hand, than if I had
been in the most prosperous condition of life.

But now when I began to be sick, and a leisurely view of the